For the Love of Thor
by The Sad Privateer
Summary: There are some things about humans that Toothless just doesn't understand - A dragon's study of human behavior.
1. Chapter 1

**So these are just some drabbles that I thought up - most of them are Toothless, expressing his opinion on this or that character or the human race in general. Pretty short for now, but I might be adding more. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**1. Bleeding**

Outside, it was hailing.

Toothless wasn't surprised. Berk was a place located a few degrees north of hopeless and a few degrees south of freezing to death, a place where it snowed nine months of the year and hailed the other three. Where nothing edible grew, and where the people were nearly as unpleasant as the weather.

A place where the only upside, the only thing that kept Toothless around, was sprawled out on a bed in a coma, running a fever and bleeding continuously. Dying.

Toothless sometimes wondered if his heart was bleeding inside of him. Watching the one-legged boy as he faded away, it certainly felt like it. The dragon wouldn't have left that bedside for anything.

So why had Astrid?

**2. Humor**

They were quite a sight in Berk, strolling the streets on warm days, and they knew it, too. They knew perfectly well that they caused a stir whenever they walked by, drawing curious spectators to watch them pass.

They were, after all, the stuff of legend: Hiccup and Toothless; Toothless and Hiccup; Stoick the Vast's son and his Night Fury; the boy and the dragon. To them, it didn't matter what people whispered when they strolled by—they were just two best friends out on a . . . walk, if you wanted to call it that.

In reality, this 'walk' was a bit more taxing than it sounded, due to the fact that one of the duo could barely stand up and the other was so absorbed with making sure that the other didn't collapse that he didn't notice the approaching tree.

You know, maybe _that _was why they drew such an audience whenever they went on their strolls—people came to investigate the violent thump of an unsuspecting dragon walking into a tree, followed by the nearly hysterical laughter of his companion.

It didn't really matter though, either way. People always walked away from the spectacle the two created smiling slightly.

That said, Toothless didn't see how anyone could find the situation funny. For the love of Thor, what was so hilarious about nearly knocking yourself out with a tree? That was another thing about humans—they had an awful sense of humor.

**3. Friends**

Toothless was genuinely fond of Hiccup's friends, he decided, and it wasn't just because Astrid knew _exactly _where he liked to be scratched, or because Fishlegs was never without food for the dragon to steal, or because Tuffnut was the prime victim of practical jokes.

No, it wasn't just that. Hiccup's friends were, in Toothless's opinion, incredibly fun to observe. Take now, for instance—watching Ruffnut as she mercilessly tackled Snotlout and flung him face-first into a large puddle of mud was endlessly entertaining. The fact that Snotlout had no idea that Ruffnut's unprovoked attack was actually a very warped display of the girl's affection for him made it even funnier.

Hiccup, who had been standing beside Toothless, wrinkled his nose as Snotlout grabbed Ruffnut's ankle and drug her into the mud, struggling to pin her down. "That's disgusting. Do you think it's cold?"

"Well, you're about to find out, aren't you?"

Toothless scooted to one side so that Astrid had enough room to tackle Hiccup around the waist and slam him down next to Snotlout with a splash.

Oh yeah. Toothless definitely liked Hiccup's friends.

**4. Obvious**

Toothless might not have known much about human relationships, but there were some things that were obvious, even to a Night Fury.

For instance, the fact that his best friend was hopelessly in love. That was pretty obvious. The only problem was that the only two people who hadn't figured it out yet happened to be the two _in_ love.

Well then, that's why Hiccup had a best friend, wasn't it?

Somebody—the only one, in fact—who was willing to wait until the two of them were lined up perfectly with that supply closet in the armory, then go crashing shamelessly into them and send both sprawling sideways into the closet, the girl landing directly on top the boy with only one leg, knocking the wind from both of them.

"Ow, Astrid, get off—"

"Oh, sorry, here—Oh, for the love of Thor, Hiccup, I am going to _kill _your dragon. You hear that, Toothless? You're paying for this!"

Maybe he'd let them out in a couple of hours. Or maybe he'd just wait for someone to find them. After all, some face time between the two of them certainly couldn't hurt. Human relationships might have been a mystery to him, but that much was obvious.

**5. Misunderstandings**

If there was one human the Toothless didn't understand, it was Stoick. The dragon found his best friend's father impossible to comprehend, even more so than the Viking girls (Although Toothless had pretty much figured them out—all you needed to do was give them stuff and let them beat you up, and they were happy. Now he needed to teach this to Hiccup).

Hiccup's father was a mystery to the dragon. The Viking cared deeply for his son, but didn't know how to show it. He felt guilty about the loss of his son's leg, and angry at himself for not being the supportive father that he should have been. On top of it all, he still didn't understand how Hiccup thought, and therefore wasn't good at making conversation with his son, which was awkward for both of them.

Toothless didn't know why Stoick was so desperate to prove that he could be a good father, even to a son what was so unlike any other Viking anyone in Berk had ever met. After all, Hiccup had turned out all right as far as the dragon was concerned. He had told Toothless himself—he loved his father. Maybe they didn't understand each other very well, but that didn't mean that he didn't love his father.

Toothless didn't know for sure, but the thought that maybe Hiccup needed to tell Stoick that more often.


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay ladies and gentlemen, mark it down on your calendars: today is the day that I have updated a fanfiction _two days in a row! _This is probably a first for me; I am famous for neglecting my fics. That said, you guys are amazing. Keep the feedback coming, everybody. Oh, and a note about #9, 'Crazy,' you know how some animals are attracted to shiny objects? Toothless has always struck me as a critter who would fall under that category. He's not a pyro or anything like that, as far as I know - but then again, he is a dragon. Who can tell? Anyway, enjoy!**

~.~

**6. Nonsense **

When Toothless saw someone draw for the first time, it was Hiccup, sketching away in the sand. The dragon had been intrigued—reptiles weren't gifted when it came to putting charcoal to paper, and how anyone could so easily create an object's likeness on a scrap of parchment was beyond him.

But that didn't mean he wouldn't try.

Whenever Hiccup decided to pass the afternoon by sitting out in the sun and sketching, Toothless would always join in: uprooting the nearest tree and dragging it back and forth across the ground in incomprehensible scribbles. It wasn't really art, only nonsense, but by Hiccup's delighted reaction you would never have known that, and the fact that Toothless's scribbles could please the boy made the dragon feel special. After all, nobody _else_ in Berk made art for Hiccup, even if it wasn't really art, of course.

But then again maybe it _was_ art, to Hiccup anyway. After all, artists saw beauty in the oddest things. So even though it made absolutely no sense to him, Toothless drew nonsense for Hiccup, and Hiccup turned it into art.

**7. Stare**

The first time Toothless noticed it, he didn't realize how significant it was. The second time he saw it, it caught his attention, and he wondered what she was doing. The third time, he stopped to watch her and see just how long she could do it without blinking.

By the fourth time Toothless caught Astrid staring at Hiccup for incredible lengths of time, he had finally realized what it meant. It made him grin.

By the fifth time, he had a plan.

Positioning himself, the dragon reached his tail around Hiccup and tapped the boy's shoulder with the fin, and Hiccup turned toward the touch. "What—" His eyes locked with Astrid's, and he froze mid-sentence.

Toothless watched with delight as the girl went a most interesting shade of red, and whirled around. Sticking her nose up, she stalked away. "What are you looking at?" she challenged them as she passed, but it wasn't very convincing due to the fact that she was still blushing deeply. Toothless smirked, and she shot him a very dirty look that clearly said "I'll get you for this one."

She probably would, too, but it was worth it. And Hiccup stared at her until she disappeared around the corner.

You know, Toothless was getting good at this.

**8. Hug**

Sometimes, Toothless felt sorry for Ruffnut and Tuffnut.

He never shared this thought with anybody, because for one, humans couldn't understand him, and for another, the twins would never have wanted anyone to know what Toothless knew—if they had even realized it themselves.

Everyone in Berk knew how the twins worked. They were tough and sturdy and dependable for the most part, and loved nothing better than a good brawl or heated argument, especially amongst themselves. That was another thing that everybody knew about the twins: they had no tolerance for each other. Half the time, the battle wounds they landed themselves with were inflicted by one another. The genuinely disliked each other, it seemed.

Toothless had found this to be mostly true, except for the last part. Ruffnut and Tuffnut _didn't _have any tolerance for each other, and they _did _hurt each other a lot. . . but they didn't really dislike each other.

Toothless knew this because he had noticed something that nobody else had, not Hiccup or Gobber or anyone else. Probably not even the twins.

Whenever something really dangerous happened, like an attack from a rival Viking tribe or an accidental fire sweeping through the village, the twins were always part of the first line of defense, always some of the first people on the scene—and always some of the first in danger. And almost always, either one or the other would nearly get themselves killed—like the time Ruffnut was taken hostage, or the time Tuffnut stepped in front of Snotlout and willingly took the near-fatal blow aimed at the other boy—because that was just the kind of people they were.

And whenever that reunion happened, that first time that they saw each other since being told that their twin had nearly been killed, always happened the same way. A not-so-subtle "For the love of Thor, what were you _thinking?_" followed by a not-so-friendly side-tackle, followed by a not-so-pleasant fist fight.

But Toothless noticed something about that tackle. In that split second from the time that one twin has wrapped their arms around the other to throw them to the ground to the time that they start fighting, that isn't a tackle. It's a _hug._

And it hurt Toothless. It hurt the dragon to see two people that he likes so much concealing their affection from each other. Ruffnut and Tuffnut were siblings. Twins, even. They shouldn't have to hide something as simple and wonderful as a hug from each other. But they do.

And Toothless felt sorry for them.

**9. Crazy**

Toothless was mesmerized.

It hypnotized him—the flickering and erratic movements of the bright colors, the way they threw shadows on the ground around them. The palette of glowing reds and oranges and yellows, the way they melted and merged together endlessly, always changing, like brilliant sunsets all existing simultaneously as they licked and fluttered. The dragon couldn't take his eyes from the way the bright fingers wove shapes and stories around each other, vanishing just as quickly as they appeared, tantalizingly close, but untouchable. It was amazing, the way it emitted an essence of exotic beauty, so wild, so—

"Toothless. . . that's a campfire."

Obviously.

"_Why_ are you staring at a campfire?"

Now that _was _a question. Why was he? The dragon grunted softly. Because it was beautiful. Duh.

Hiccup limped up, putting one hand on Toothless's black scales to steady himself as he took the weight off his prosthetic leg. There was a moment of silence as the boy and the dragon stared at the simple campfire.

Toothless couldn't take his eye's off it. It was _mesmerizing._

Hiccup seemed to get the message. "Toothless, you know you're crazy, right buddy?"

Humans. Toothless snorted. He wasn't crazy. He was enjoying nature's art, something that the human race seemed incapable of doing. He wasn't crazy. Right?

Of course not.


	3. Chapter 3

**Here we go everybody, another chapter. You people are amazing, so you deserve it. I figure that drabbles 11 and 12 kind of go together, and you could also throw 13 in there - they're all similar in a way. You'll probably know what I'm talking about when you get there. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**10. Snow**

"Oh, look," Hiccup commented wryly as he stuck his head out of the door. "No blizzard. Must be a heat wave."

Heat wave indeed, Toothless thought to himself as he followed Hiccup out into the winter wonderland left in the storm's wake. The blizzard had lasted for days and had only come to an end about an hour ago, but already the fresh snow held proof of life—footprints made intricate criss-cross designs on the thick blanket of white, telling stories of people and animals with places to go.

The snow muffled the sounds that floated up from the heart of Berk, making the entire village seem peaceful and quiet as the boy and the dragon padded along, making their own trail in the soft snow, simply relishing the silence. Of course, it didn't last long. Toothless wasn't surprised, somehow. It never did.

Astrid burst from the nearest snowbank with a yell, Snotlout and Fishlegs on her heels, all three laughing as they made the most of the fresh snow. Hiccup only had time for a slightly panicked "Oh, great—" before he was snatched up by his friends and whisked away. Toothless watched with distaste as they shoved each other into the soft piles of snow, thoroughly soaking themselves but laughing the whole time.

The dragon had never liked snow much. It was too cold for his taste, and while it was pretty when it was fresh, it only stayed that way for so long. Besides, it brought out a certain annoying giddiness in otherwise respectable Viking dragon riders.

_Thwack! _

Toothless froze on the spot, feeling the cold remains of the snowball that had hit his head scatter across his back.

Not far away, Hiccup slapped Fishlegs a high-five. "Bulls-eye!"

_Now _they were just asking for trouble. The dragon allowed a mischievous smile to spread across his features.

Okay, so he still didn't like the cold weather, but snow or no snow, nobody could outrun a dragon. And snowbanks were the perfect places to bury the dead bodies of troublesome, dragon-harassing teenagers.

**11. Wounded**

It happened so fast. Toothless could barely process what was happening. One second he was defending Berk from the Vikings that had attacked from the North, swooping down on them at lightning speeds, running purely on adrenalin, defending the village with his life because he knew that if he didn't there would be no village left to defend. And the next moment—

Then what? He could barely remember. It had happened so fast. Something had hit his chest, he remembered that much. He didn't know what it had been, but it had hurt. Lots. It had made him dizzy and weak and within a second, he was falling. That had been unexpected, and the only thing that the dragon could think of as he plummeted down was how glad he was that he hadn't been far from the ground, close enough that Hiccup wouldn't be too badly hurt when—

Then everything went black.

It had happened so fast.

**12. Cry**

Hiccup doesn't cry easily, but Toothless hates it when he does. Mostly because he knows that whatever is making Hiccup cry can't be fixed—not by him, anyway.

After all, Toothless can't fix it when friends—good friends—are lost to war. He can't fix a leg that no longer exists. He can't fix the deep, growing emotional rift between father and son. As hard as Toothless tries, he can't fix everything.

Toothless hates it when Hiccup cries. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's painful to watch, to listen to, because it's all of the raw, awful frustration that comes with Hiccup's life pouring out of him. And the misery of it seeps into Toothless and makes his heart ache, and he wants to fix it. But he can't fix everything.

Hiccup doesn't cry easily, but Toothless always makes sure that when he does, he isn't alone.

**13. Free**

Of all the things that Hiccup has done for Toothless, there is one in particular that the dragon always remembers. Of all the favors, all the sacrifices that Hiccup has made for his best friend, there is one that by far means the most.

Hiccup made Toothless free.

When the dragon lost his tail fin, and therefore his ability to fly correctly, he had thought he was finished. After all, what was a dragon who couldn't fly? Just a big, temperamental lizard with useless wings. Not a dragon anymore. Just an animal. Just another ordinary, flightless ground-dwelling animal. After all, if a dragon lost it's ability to fly, it lost it's freedom and it's pride and it's very way of life. In other words, a flightless dragon was just another dead lizard walking.

And Hiccup changed all that. Ignoring the fact that it was, technically, the boy's fault that Toothless couldn't fly in the first place, he invented that odd, awkward contraption, and, with practice, gave Toothless his freedom—and his life—back.

And now Toothless tries his best to make it up. He wants Hiccup to understand just how much the boy really did when he latched that sail-like strip of cloth onto the dragon's tail. He wants to show Hiccup what free feels like, and when he launches himself into the sky with the boy on his back, it feels right. When the boy loses his leg, it feels even more right somehow. Maybe because they're both underdogs, disabled and broken, who are beating the odds.

Because despite what fate threw at them, they're still free.

**14. Bubbles**

You know, Toothless really liked bubbles, especially the ones that popped into and out of existence on the surface of that little stream that ran along the edge of Berk. Toothless was very fond of that miniscule trickle of water—it was crystal clear and cool and, of course, full of bubbles.

Hiccup and Astrid liked that stream, too. Mostly Toothless figured that they enjoyed watching him as he staggered around, enjoying himself to no end as he snapped away at the bubbles that boiled to the surface as the water flowed over the rocks. The only problem with this was that it was always immensely difficult to get the dragon home after spending half the day there. He acted a bit. . . tipsy, to say the least.

"Oh, for the love of Thor. Hiccup, I believe that your dragon is drunk on stream water. I didn't know that was possible."

Hiccup grinned. "Neither did I, but it could be worse. We should be thankful that it's only the bubbles he's drunk on; the last thing I need in my life is a Night Fury with a fetish for alcohol."


	4. Chapter 4

**Here we go, another chapter. Enjoy! **

**~.~**

**15. Self-Explanatory **

It was conversations like these, Toothless decided as he sat in the forgery watching the lesson unfold, that he found immensely amusing.

"Okay. We'll go over it again. For the seventh time. You set the machine like this. Got it?"

"I got that the first time, lad. It's the _rest _of this gizmo I don't get."

"Fine, just—just listen, alright? You set the machine like this. This little thing here is what you use to aim where you want to shoot the—"

"This thing?"

"No. That's. . . I don't know what that is. It isn't supposed to be there. Ignore it, alright? _This _is the thing you use to aim. See?"

"Got it. What's that thing on the end?"

"We're getting there. Give me a minute. So, this is what you use to aim. Which means that this spot back here is where you—"

"What's it made out of?"

"What's—huh? What's what made of?"

"This lever thing!"

"I don't—who cares what it's—look, I have to teach you how to _use _the machine first. Then we can worry about what it's made out of."

"Alright, lad. Hey, what's that thing on the end again?"

". . ."

Toothless couldn't help but smile. It was times like these when he realized just how much more advanced Hiccup was than the majority of the Viking population. They had been in the forgery for over an hour, and Gobber still hadn't figured out how to use Hiccup's newest—and simplest—weapon.

"Wait, what's this button thing for? Ya lost me again, lad."

". . . I kind of expected that, actually."

"Just start over again, would ya? I'll get it this time."

"Okay, why don't we—"

Toothless sighed. As amusing as this conversation was, it needed to end sooner or later, otherwise all three of them would be here for another week. The dragon reached out with his tail and slapped the button on the side of the weapon with his fin. He effectively fired the thing—and blew a hole in the wall.

Hiccup groaned and leaned his forehead against the table. "For the love of Thor. Why can't this ever be _easy_?"

Gobber, on the other hand, had a different opinion.

"Hey, I get it now!"

See? Toothless knew _exactly _what he was doing.

**16. News**

Toothless had seen Hiccup coming from quite a ways a way, staggering and tripping as he ran full-out up the hill towards the dragon. Toothless watched with mild amusement; he hadn't seen his best friend so clumsy on his feet since he had lost his leg, and that had been over ten years ago. What on earth was up with him?

"Toothless!" Hiccup lurched to an unsteady halt beside his friend before collapsing onto his back to lie spread-eagled in the grass. His chest was rising and falling rapidly as he gasped for breath, struggling to recover from his wild dash through Berk. "Oh, man—Toothless—"

The dragon stood up and leaned over the panting man. He had the oddest expression on his face, Toothless noticed; he was grinning like a mad man and his face was flushed, but his eyes were wide and a little bit scared looking.

"I'm gonna be a father."

There was a long moment while the two friends stared at each other. Toothless should have seen this coming. He had expected it years ago, when Hiccup had gotten married. He had been waiting for this for a long, long time. He shouldn't have been so surprised.

Ha, so much for that.

Toothless fainted.

**17. Scars**

It was very, very hard to wound a dragon. They're scaly skin was so thick and strong that breaking through it was nearly impossible.

Nearly impossible. Not impossible—_nearly._

Toothless had scars to prove it. Quite a few, actually. The biggest one, his lack of a second tail fin, was the most obvious, but there were others too. They were very subtle, but once you noticed one, you started seeing them all over the dragon's black body.

He had one on his left foot. Another on his chest. There was a tiny notch in his ear. One more on the underside of his right wing. Toothless had more or less forgotten about those scars. Until Hiccup noticed them, that is.

Toothless knew that Hiccup hated those scars. He never looked at them for long, if he could help it, but every once and a while he would see one that he had never realized was there before, and he would frown. Just like now.

Hiccup reached out and traced the long gray line that ran along the inside of his dragon's leg. He was frowning. "Now where did _that _one come from?" he asked quietly, more to himself than Toothless.

The dragon turned away uncomfortably, his ears flat against his head. He could remember all too well where that one had come from. Hiccup didn't need to know.

**18. Promise**

There she was.

The dragon touched down in the grass next to a small lake placed in the very center of a deep, crater-like ravine. Memories flooded back. This was where he had been trapped for those first few days after he had lost his tail. This was where. . . where he met. . .

He stopped thinking about that.

And there she was. Toothless approached Astrid cautiously from behind, watching her as she sat on the bank of the lake with her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking. Putting his head close to hers, he made a soft noise deep in his throat. She looked up, piercing him with her bloodshot eyes. "Toothless. . ."

She leaned back against him, and the dragon curled around to lay his head by her legs. For a moment neither moved as they stared at the beautiful sunlight flickering off the glassy surface of the lake. Even the weather was mocking them today. It should have been raining.

Without warning, Astrid blew up. "He promised, Toothless!" she cried, unable to hide the tears that ran down her cheeks. "He _promised _that he would be okay! He promised! And he _lied_!" She drew her knees up to her chest and hid her face. "He knew, Toothless, he knew what was going to happen! Why did he do it?"

Toothless didn't know.

Astrid's voice was softer now that her rage had given way to grief. "_Why _did he do it, Toothless? Why did he have to die?"

And that was all that mattered, wasn't it? It didn't matter how or why or what, all that mattered was that he was dead. Toothless knew that the reality of it hadn't fully hit him yet. He didn't really want it to, either.

Because Hiccup was _dead_.

**19. Immaturity **

Stoick stared at them, his mouth hanging open ever so slightly. Toothless didn't blame him. They did make quite a scene, after all.

"So who wants to explain to me _exactly _what happened?"

All he got in response was a smattering of smothered giggles. The seven of them stood in a line before the Viking chief, heads lowered politely but barely concealed grins on their faces.

"Do I want to know?"

Hiccup spoke up. "Probably not."

More giggles. Toothless cast a glance down the line at his comrades in crime. The dragon himself was covered from head to toe in a thick layer of black mud, along with Tuffnut and Snotlout. Fishlegs was covered with leaves and twigs and some kind of unrecognizable substance. Astrid was sopping wet. Hiccup had soot and ash smeared across his face, Ruffnut's braids were smoldering, and both had burn marks on their clothes.

Stoick was still in shock. "And what are we going to do about this?"

Snotlout burst out laughing, and the twins followed suit. Within a second, all of them were howling with mirth.

"How about this," Astrid suggested through her laughter as she clung to Hiccup for support. "We tell you, and you disinherit Hiccup from the family and ban us all from Berk forever—"

"Or," Snotlout continued, clutching a stitch in his side and gasping for air, "we don't tell you, and we clean everything up and hide the bodies, and you never hear about this again."

Toothless growled in agreement to this wise statement, still shaking with silent laughter.

Stoick stared at them. "Just. . . just go. Go on! I don't want to see any of you again for the rest of the day, do you hear me?"

He turned away, shaking his head in bewilderment, while Toothless and his friends staggered off, leaning on one another as they struggled to control their hysterics. The failed, and not one of them made it farther than ten steps before they had all collapsed once again, leaving streaks of mud, ash, and water on the ground.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello, everybody, another chapter! Now, I know that there have been a lot of questions about #17 and #18. About those - I'm not going to comment. I, of course, had my own backstory to them when I wrote them, but by telling you, I'll be infulencing your interpretation of the drabbles. Sorry if I'm being confusing, but I want you guys to have your own opinion. Make up your own backstory! As for #19, not telling that either! The gang will take _that_ secret to the grave. . . That said, I think that a lot of you are going to have some problems with #23. Sorry about that, but I couldn't resist. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**20. Theory**

"Toothless, eat your vegetables."

Haha. Right. Not happening.

"Toothless. . ."

Uh-uh. Toothless was a carnivore, solid and true. It was fish or nothing. Besides, nobody went around telling Hiccup, who had taken a recent liking to vegetarianism, to eat his beaver livers.

"C'mon buddy, it's just a carrot. It won't poison you."

That's what Hiccup thought. It was only a theory. Toothless had never even eaten a carrot—how did anyone know that it wouldn't poison him? Dragons didn't eat vegetables. Nobody knew that they wouldn't be poisoned by carrots.

And Toothless wasn't going to find out anytime soon, thank you very much.

**21. Warrior**

Toothless crept through the darkness, his ears up, barely making a sound as he stealthily followed the figure in the distance. Toothless didn't like to spy, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him.

He quietly followed Stoick through the dense trees and into an open clearing full of gray, unmarked rocks each about the size of a human head, lined up in rows on the grass. Graves. Toothless had followed Stoick to Berk's graveyard.

The Viking chief had the dragon's interest now. What was he doing in the _graveyard_, of all places? Wait, was the Viking _talking _to one of the gravestones?

Indeed he was. Toothless listened.

". . . I just don't understand him. He's so different, I've never met anyone like him in my life. We don't think the same way, don't understand each other. . . for the love of Thor, we don't even eat the same things. I just. . . he doesn't make any sense to me. And I know that he doesn't get me, either. I can tell. Gods, I'm so _bad _at this stuff. . . you'd know exactly how to handle him, if you were still here."

Hiccup's mother. Toothless realized that Stoick was talking to his wife.

"He's a hero though, you know. He might have already told you, but he saved Berk. I bet he watered it down for you—he's so modest. That's another thing I don't get about him. But he's a hero. A. . . a warrior, in his own way, I guess. He lost his leg, too. I bet he never told you that. Probably didn't want you to worry. Didn't want you to know how close. . . how close he came to meeting you."

There was a silence. Then Stoick continued.

"But it just don't _get _the lad. And it's only gotten worse as he's gotten older. Heck, I guess I saw it coming; I've been dreading the teen years since he was three. But still, I never expected _this_. I mean, the lad's a bloody legend! A warrior! I really wish you could meet him—you'd love him. You'd understand him. You'd help me. . . help me feel like a father again."

Toothless stood in the trees, watching the Viking as he poured his heart out in a very un-Stoick-like manner to the one person who could really understand. The only person who could ever come close to knowing what to do—and never be able to answer.

**22. Rain**

It was one of those wonderfully warm summer storms that gathered on the horizon in a matter of minutes and opened up without warning, dumping millions upon millions of fat, glassy raindrops into the sea and onto the Viking village below. It was one of the very few weather characteristics of Berk that Toothless figured could actually be enjoyed without causing harm, meaning that is wasn't a week-long blizzard with eighty below wind chills, nor a violent thunderstorm that hit the trees with lightning and sent half the forest up in flames, nor was it fist-sized hail or deadly flooding or slick, icy sleet.

It was just rain.

And it could be enjoyed in a variety of ways. Toothless enjoyed flying in the gentle rain—it was a different sensation than just soaring through air, and now there was no danger of getting fried by lightning or being blown away by wind. If you were Ruffnut and Tuffnut, you pelted each other with mudballs with large rocks hidden inside for that extra satisfying _thunk!_ If you were sane, you ran for cover. If you were Fishlegs, you stared up at the oncoming raindrops dumbly and blinded yourself.

And if you were Hiccup and Astrid, the dragon noticed with a smile, you danced.

**23. Seconds**

Berk was in flames. The entire village was in chaos, turned into a war zone, a death trap, by the attacking Vikings from the North. There was no order, no definite right or wrong, just self-defense and escape: You ran for your life, and if you saw someone you didn't recognize while doing so, you killed them. Simple as that. There was no regard for age, or gender, or loyalty. You just fought, and tried to avoid being burned alive by the roaring flames that consumed the village of Berk as the night wore on.

Toothless was furious. He was in shock. He was terrified. And he was struggling. Of all the things that could bring down the mighty Night Fury, it was a tree, weakened by the flames—a _tree_, for the love of Thor—that had fallen on his weak form and trapped him beneath it's heavy trunk.

But he had to get free. It didn't matter how much it hurt or how weak he was or how many bones the massive oak had crushed, Toothless needed to escape.

Fifteen feet away, just beyond the dragon's reach, Astrid dangled from a cliff face with nothing between her and the churning surface of the sea but a thirty second drop. The only thing anchoring her to solid ground was Hiccup, leaning as far out as he could without endangering himself as well, clutching to her fingers.

But he wasn't going to last. Astrid was weak. Hiccup was weaker. The girl, with all her muscle mass, weighed just as much as Hiccup did, and he wasn't in the same physical condition that she was. He couldn't hold her for long, and she had lost so much blood in the battle, it was a wonder she was still conscious herself.

Toothless fought against the heavy trunk of the tree. He was almost free. If they could just hold on for—

It wasn't going to happen.

"Astrid, do you trust me?"

She nodded. Toothless could only see the top of her head as she hung from Hiccup's fingers, but he saw it move.

Their hold on each other slipped, and they both cried out. Toothless heaved the heavy tree trunk off his chest. He was free, and oh, gods, he could barely stand, barely open his wings—but it didn't matter.

They had thirty seconds before Astrid hit the water. And a fall like that could only end in tragedy.


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello, ladies and gentlemen, another chapter! I'm rather fond of this bunch, if I do say so myself. Now, about #24, 'Eternity,' it is the continuation of #23, 'Seconds,' that you all wanted. And yes, you may beat me with a cheese grater when you're done reading it. I'm sorry. Also, I'm sure you've all heard or said those lame comebacks that are so popular now? You know, "So's your face!" and "Your mom!" and a couple of other popular ones? They were my inspiration for #25. You'll get it. And (I'm almost done, I promise) I know that a lot of you have posted excellent questions in your reviews, and if I haven't replied, I'm sorry. I'm lazy. And when I'm not being lazy, I'm really busy. I'll try to answer as soon as possible :) But I will answer one question, because I get it every once and a while, and it drives me nuts: just because a character dies in one of these drabbles, does not mean that they stay dead in the rest of them. These drabbles have no effect on one another, unless otherwise stated, and therefore deaths only retain to the drabble that they occured in. Now, go read, and beat me with a cheese grater for #24, because I deserve it. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**24. Eternity **

They had thirty seconds. Thirty seconds before Astrid hit the water. Thirty seconds to gather their wits, get over the edge of the cliff, and catch up with Astrid's free-fall.

And already those thirty seconds were ticking by.

Toothless staggered to his feet, testing his wings as he scrambled over to where Hiccup waited, kneeling on the brink of the cliff, staring down. Under normal circumstances, both of them would be freaking out. But there was no time to lose it now, no time to fall apart. They had only thirty seconds—even less, now: twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two. . .

Within a moment the boy was perched on the dragon's back, and then they were gone, tossing themselves out over the open water after the girl who's seconds were numbered: nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen. . .

But Toothless wasn't in his prime. He was in so much pain, he had become numb to it. He couldn't feel his legs, and his vision blurred in and out of focus as he fought to control the completely vertical nose-dive he found himself in. His wings wavered dangerously. He could hear Hiccup edging him on, but he could barely process the words.

It was the shortest thirty seconds of his life—it wasn't nearly enough time to reach Astrid. But it was also a thirty-second eternity.

And they were too far behind. Toothless hadn't been fast enough.

They saw it happen. Toothless was there—still twenty feet above her head when she broke the surface at full speed, the impact of hitting that water from such an incredible height killing her instantly.

And that thirty-second eternity hadn't been long enough.

**25. Quote**

"For the love of Thor, Hiccup, don't do it like that, are you completely—"

"That's what she said!"

Everybody stopped so stare at Snotlout. He was looking rather proud of himself—it was obvious that he'd been waiting a long time for the right opportunity to say that.

Toothless didn't get it. And judging by the way everyone else looked at Snotlout, he wasn't the only one.

Astrid raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"It's like—you know—do you people _seriously _not get it?"

Nobody did. Except, of course, the only one of the group who thought similarly to Snotlout.

Tuffnut smirked. "She might have said it, but not to you!"

The two burst out laughing. Toothless had no idea why.

"That's great, man! You just wait—someday, everybody will be saying it!"

The dragon doubted that.

**26. Tough**

_Thwack!_

Toothless winced as Hiccup hit the ground—again.

"Ah, Astrid, what was that for?"

"You're supposed to _fight _me, Hiccup, not stand there and take it!"

"You know I'm incapable of defending myself with a weapon! That doesn't mean you need to blind me. I'm already down a leg—sight loss isn't going to help me any."

"Shut up and defend yourself. Stop complaining—I'm not going to kill you. Not on purpose, anyway."

Hiccup couldn't fight. It had been proven time and time again. And yet Toothless found that the boy was still press-ganged by Gobber and Stoick into fighting lessons with his peers. And he suffered for it.

_Smack! _

"Ohhh, gods, I'm gonna feel that one in the morning."

"Hiccup, you're hopeless."

Toothless watched with amusement as Hiccup hauled himself unsteadily to his feet. Almost immediately, Astrid tripped him and rammed him between the shoulder blades with the handle of her heavy ax, and he went down again.

"Remind me again why you're beating me up?" Hiccup asked from where he was lying on the ground.

Astrid stood over him, propping the handle of her ax on his chest and leaning on it, making him groan. She gave him a smile that was smug, evil, and just a little bit understanding. "Call it tough love, Hiccup. Tough love."

Toothless grinned. There was a confession in there somewhere.

**27. Daisies **

Toothless shot a furtive look over his shoulder as he gathered together the hasty bouquet of little white and yellow flowers. Picking daisies was not what he usually chose to do with his free time, and indeed, if Hiccup or Snotlout ever saw this, the dragon would never hear the end of it.

But he had decided that the risk was worth it. Today, anyway.

Scooping up the sizable bunch of flowers in his mouth, he scampered happily off toward Berk in search of the recipient of his gift—and she took a surprisingly short time to find (which was good, because the longer he ran around with his mouth full of flowers the more of a chance there was of him being spotted).

Ruffnut looked up at Toothless, turned back to the river, paused, then turned again to watch the dragon as he approached, glancing at the odd package of flowers he carried.

Toothless stopped in front of her and extended his neck to offer Ruffnut the daisies. For a moment she stared at him skeptically, and he worried that the warrior girl would not accept his spontaneous present. After all, there was no reason for him to be giving her flowers, besides the fact that she had looked lonely, standing here at the river by herself.

But then she reached out and gently took the bouquet from him, and Toothless realized that she had probably never been given flowers before. Smiling slightly to himself, he turned around and started back the way he had come, off in search of something else to pass the time. And when he looked momentarily back over his shoulder, Ruffnut was smiling too.

**28. Clever**

Nobody ever thought much about Fishlegs. Toothless didn't understand why. After all, Fishlegs was a part of the gang, wasn't he? He was one of Hiccup's friends. He got into trouble with the rest of them, and had helped save Berk, and was always there for his friends when they hit a bump in the road.

But. . . for some reason, people just didn't think about Fishlegs very often. How that was possible, Toothless didn't know. The Viking teenager was so big and made so much noise (because he was incredibly clumsy and forever knocking stuff over) that he was almost impossible to miss.

Fishlegs was clever, too. He was the only Viking besides Hiccup that knew what the word 'enunciate' meant, or what a hypotenuse was. He was one of the very few that read extensively, and although he didn't often show it, he was quite a schemer at heart.

He made mistakes, but they all did, didn't they? So if Fishlegs was so clever—and Toothless knew he was—then. . . why didn't anybody pay any attention to him?


	7. Chapter 7

**Hey, everybody, another update. Thank you so much to all of my amazing reviewers. You guys rock. Period. :)**

**~.~**

**29. Puzzle **

Toothless had decided that Berk was like a puzzle.

All the individual people and places made up the pieces to this puzzle, each one a necessary part that was needed to make a whole. Each and every person and building and landmark in the Viking village contributed to the big picture, even if it didn't know how or why or where it fit in. They all were needed in order to create the big, beautiful colorful creation that was Berk.

Of course, some pieces of the puzzle had some difficulties with each other. Some of them just clicked, simple as that—like Gobber and Stoick, and the friendship that molded their pieces together. Others were stubborn and refused to stick together the right way even if they obviously went with each other, like Ruffnut and Tuffnut. And other puzzle pieces, Toothless knew, were aware of each other's presence but were still finding out how they fit together, such as Astrid and Hiccup.

But they still fit together. Somehow. Every last one of them was, in some way, a little part of the complete picture.

Toothless already knew where he fit in the puzzle—now he needed to start teaching others where they fit in, too.

**30. Thunder**

Being a mighty, fearless, indestructible Night Fury, there wasn't much that really scared Toothless. Most normal fears didn't effect him—he wasn't afraid of spiders, or the dark, or heights (obviously), or crowded places. It was, in fact, very difficult to scare Toothless.

Unfortunately, Hiccup had found the dragon's weakness.

"Lovely weather we're having, eh buddy?" the Viking boy inquired innocently as he lay on top of his bed, still fully clothed, listening to the sounds of the thunderstorm that raged outside.

As he pressed himself to the floor against the side of the bed,Toothless didn't find his best friend's jests funny at all. How could he help it if thunder made him jumpy?

Outside the window, white lightning flashed. "Oh, look, Toothless, you know what comes—" Hiccup was interrupted by a roar of thunder that shook the very floorboards. Cold, slushy rain dashed against the walls of the hut, and the chilling wind moaned through the trees.

Toothless cowered against the ground, his pupils narrowed to slits in his discomfort. Hiccup draped a hand over the edge of the bed to scratch the dragon's ears. "Poor Toothless, you don't like thunderstorms much, do you?" he asked sympathetically, but the Night Fury could hear the grin in his voice.

Another rumble of thunder echoed over the sea, and even though Hiccup's question had been a rhetorical one, he got his answer when Toothless leaped up and shoved the boy off the bed and onto the floor as he scrambled to hide beneath the blankets.

Hiccup was laughing openly now as he lay on the floorboards, the quivering dragon haven taken his place on the bed. "I thought not."

**31. Reasons**

"Hiccup, you are the absolute worst Viking I have ever had the misfortune to meet."

Oh boy. There they went again. Be it playful banter or not, Toothless could already feel the headache coming. And dragons didn't even _get _headaches.

"I get that a lot, Astrid. Mind to elaborate?"

Toothless watched as the fierce blonde girl stalked along the water's edge. She shot an annoyed glance back over her shoulder at the boy who limped along behind her, still not quite steady on his feet so soon after the loss of his leg. "Well for one," she started, "have you _seen _yourself fight recently?"

Hiccup rolled his eyes. "Why don't you point something out besides the obvious for once?" he asked sarcastically.

"But its the obvious reasons that are the problem," Astrid shot back. "For instance, the fact that you are a vegetarian. Seriously, I knew you had issues, but of all the things—"

"I am not a vegetarian, I am _considering _becoming one. There's a difference, you know."

Toothless sighed, and Astrid gave a sharp snort of laughter. "Either way, Hiccup, you are officially the first person in Berk to even _consider _eating nothing but grass for the rest of your life."

Toothless could tell that this conversation was a lost cause, and Hiccup knew it too. "Fine," the boy snapped, "so I'm a vegetarian. What else is new?"

"On top of the fact that you can't fight and you are a picky eater," Astrid continued, "you are a dragon-tamer. And as awesome as that is, that is the _last_ profession a Viking would ever consider. You also read, which is weird beyond belief, you're artistically gifted, and you're sensitive to hygene, which, in case you haven't noticed, completely breaks every last Viking custom out there. You are without a doubt the _worst _Viking I have ever met."

By this time, Hiccup had grown numb to Astid's critiquing of his personal habits, and simply plodded along behind her with Toothless.

"_And_," Astrid ground out from between clenched teeth, as if the confession was physically hurting her, "you're cute. I mean, really, Hiccup, Vikings don't come in 'cute.' It's unnatural. Can you truthfully tell me that you've ever met a _cute _Viking?"

That statement had caught the attention of both the boy and the Night Fury, and Toothless glanced sideways to see a sly smirk growing on his friend's face. "Actually, I have met a cute Viking," Hiccup said, but only loud enough for Toothless to hear. "I'm looking at her."

**32. Future **

The future had not turned out the way it was supposed to.

That was all that Toothless could think of as he dashed through the wreckage of Berk, leaping over smoldering remains of what had once been a thriving Viking village. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Toothless was never supposed to be alone.

The dragon fought against the panic that was threatening to burst from his chest. That panic had been there for a long time, suppressed within him, controlled.

But not anymore.

For the first time in a very, very long time, Toothless felt completely alone. He barely recognized his village, the home he had learned to love over ten years ago. There was nobody here now, since the entire population had been evacuated, and the real action had moved out into the forest. Now there was nothing but burning rubble and destroyed buildings and the sound of combat and terror from the direction of the woods. And Toothless.

And maybe—just maybe—Hiccup. That's the only reason that Toothless had come back. Four hours ago, his best friend had vanished into the smoke, running back towards the chaos, in one last, desperate attempt to save his only son.

When he had been informed by a sobbing, bleeding Astrid that they hadn't shown up with the survivors, Toothless had known that his last hope was here, among the remains of Berk.

The future had not turned out the way it was supposed to.

**33. Fix**

Hiccup is very good at fixing things. Toothless knew this for a fact.

His best friend is a complete know-it-all when it comes to anything mechanical. Be it tools or weapons or machines, simple or complicated, new or old, Hiccup can fix it.

This talent works on dragons, too. Hiccup is constantly repairing Toothless's prosthetic tail fin, making it better and stronger every time, upgrading it, making it feel more and more natural.

Hiccup can also fix people. He doesn't display this talent quite as often as the others, but it's a proven fact. Toothless knows that whenever Astrid is broken, be it her pride or her heart of her logic, Hiccup can heal her when he holds her close.

Fixing is just one of those things that comes naturally to Hiccup. And, in he best friend's opinion, it's a pretty handy little gift, too.


	8. Chapter 8

**Here we go, another chapter! I like these ones, too, even if there aren't really any dark ones here. But #35 makes me insanely happy. I don't know why - the idea just really appeals to me, you know? Anyway, enjoy!**

**~.~**

**34. Strange**

Despite the fact that it wasn't even dawn yet, Hiccup had been up for a considerable amount of time. Already he had been through Berk and back twice, and Stoic and Toothless had only just arrived at the point where they were awake enough to think properly. Now, as Stoic sat at the table eating breakfast and Toothless lay on the floor, begging, the boy returned, breaking the calm inside of the hut as he burst in the door. Stoic and Toothless watched silently as Hiccup scrambled across the room and got down on his knees to riffle around beneath the bed. Fifteen seconds later he was dragging a large bag across the room and disappearing out the door.

There was a moment of silence before Stoic began to eat again, unconcerned by his son's odd behavior. He was, after all, used to not understanding Hiccup's motives. Toothless was a bit too hungry to be involved in his best friend's shenanigans so early in the morning.

Less than a minute later, Hiccup showed up again, slamming the door open in a hurry and running through the room. In the middle of the hut, he paused for a second, looking thoughtful, before whirling around and sprinting back out the door. Again, a moment later, he reappeared, dashed to the large wooden chest in the corner where he grabbed some suspicious-looking object wrapped in cloth, and vanished out the door again, slamming it behind him.

After a moment of staring at the door, Stoic resumed eating. Ten seconds later, instead of bursting in the door, Hiccup ran by the window with Snotlout, dragging what looked like a small tree behind them. Again, Toothless and Stoic stared. And again, neither were surprised when Hiccup breezed into the hut once more, grabbed a wooden bucket from beside the bed, and dashed right back out. A second later, the door reopened and Hiccup stuck his head in.

"Morning, Dad!"

The door slammed shut again.

Toothless snorted. Typical. Stoick exchanged a glance with the dragon. "Strange, strange child. . ."

**35. Imaginative**

Toothless has noticed, over time, that Tuffnut has always been a bit more imaginative than his twin sister, if only just a little. While Ruffnut is, was, and always would be firmly rooted in reality, Tuffnut was more of a dreamer, a bit more creative, even if he didn't show it often. However, if there was one thing that even Tuffnut, with all his creativity, didn't see coming, it was the undeniable attraction between his sister and his best friend.

It was true. Ruffnut and Snotlout fell for each other. Hard. And Tuffnut never saw it coming. Not many people had, though. Even Toothless had been caught by surprise when the word had leaked, but looking back on it now, the dragon figured that he should have seen the signs a long time ago.

Tuffnut took it hard, to say the least. For a while, anyway. Eventually he came to accept the fact that there was nothing he could do about it, and he gave up trying to resist. His mood was helped slightly by the fact that Snotlout and Ruffnut, like most Vikings, did a lot of arguing that often ended in violence. Unfortunately for Tuffnut, over time those arguments began to end more and more frequently with Snotlout and Ruffnut simply giving up trying to make a point to each other and starting to make out.

Tuffnut didn't take that well, either. And it only got worse for the poor boy as, eventually, his twin sister and his best friend came to the conclusion that arguing did nothing for either of them, and therefore skipped the yelling all together and went straight to making out.

And while Toothless found their relationship amusing and rather sweet, Tuffnut would often stagger away, horrified, exclaiming that, for the love of Thor, even _his _active imagination could not come up with anything worse that this.

**36. Waiting**

Being a dragon, Toothless has a naturally restless soul. That is, he isn't always happy living in one spot. Toothless wants to travel, to explore, to expand his freedom far beyond the confines of Berk.

Some days he likes to find a cliff, high above the rolling sea waves, and stare out over the water, wondering what lies beyond that horizon. He knows that there is more out there. The world is a big place, he believes. He can't prove it, of course—but there has to be more to the world than Vikings and dragons, doesn't there?

Toothless hopes so. And he intends to find out, too. Someday, he wants to see what else there is out there. He won't go soon, and he hopes that he won't have to go alone, but he's going to go.

Because there's a world out there, and he feels that it's watching him. Calling him forward. Expecting him. Waiting.

**37. Opposites**

They were very, very different, and everyone—including them—knew it. Toothless found it reason-defying how two people so different could click together the way Astrid and Hiccup did; but they clicked, and that was that.

Even if they hadn't figured it out yet.

They usually tried to hide if from the world, especially themselves and each other, but occasionally you could get a confession out of one of them. With Astrid, if you got her riled up and ranting long enough, she would usually let some compliment for the boy slip without even realizing that she had done so. It was similar with Hiccup—he would be talking to you calmly enough but then get distracted by something he was doing, and before long he was rambling on about whatever came to mind. That was the easiest way to get a confession out of either of them: just get them talking.

Although, as far as Toothless could tell, talking was Hiccup's talent more than Astrid's. Astrid was more of a shouter and a complainer. While Hiccup made speeches, Astrid made protests. Hiccup was prone to the occasional monologue. Astrid was far more of a punch-somebody-while-they're-in-the-middle-of-one type.

And so on. Astrid was tough as nails. Hiccup was sensitive. Astrid gave no quarter and enjoyed being in charge. Hiccup could handle leadership if it was thrust upon him, but preferred to stay out of the way. Astrid acted like a Viking. Hiccup. . . didn't.

On top of it, they argued. Toothless had never met anyone in his life who quarreled as much as Hiccup and Astrid. And now that they were older and had been elected onto Berk's city council, or "circle" as it was called, it was even worse. Community meetings turned into shouting matches between the two of them, with everyone else sitting uncomfortably around and trying not to bring down the duo's wrath upon his or her head.

What could be said for both of them, however, was that they knew how to get something done. They were the kind of people who could start yelling orders, and others would jump to obey. And, Toothless supposed, they were capable of putting aside their differences whenever disaster struck and they needed to get along. It was one of the advantages of them being Astrid and Hiccup.

What Toothless was really dreading though, was the wedding. It was going to come some time, and when it did, it was going to be messy. And then there would be the house to argue about, and the income, and the relatives dropping by for a visit, and everything else the popped up along the way. . .

Oh boy. It was going to be a long sixty years.


	9. Chapter 9

**Hey, everybody, another chapter up. I'm sorry if #42 is an angst explosion—It's a little killer (no pun intended! Sorry. That was cheesy.) even for my standards. So anyway, read on, and enjoy! **

**~.~**

**38. Enthusiasm**

It was common knowledge that Hiccup was prone to reckless but undeniably heroic actions that, most of the time, turned out for the better. It was also common knowledge that these little stunts of his, no matter how impressive, were first-class ways to get a lot of people worried about him, including Astrid.

And usually Astrid, in both thanks and celebration that Hiccup had managed to make it another week without killing himself, would reward him with a non-too-gentle punch to the shoulder or whatever part of him was within punching range, followed by a quick but confident peck on the lips.

Today, however, Toothless came to the conclusion that his latest excursion with his best friend had really ticked her off, because she was a tad bit more enthusiastic than usual.

Hiccup had barely noticed her presence when, instead of going lightly for his shoulder, she swung in with a powerful right and clocked him in the head hard enough to send him staggering. Toothless could also tell that the boy was going to develop the mother of all black eyes in an hour or so.

"_That_," she snarled, "was for ditching me on that rock and running off to get yourself killed."

She had a point, Toothless reasoned. They _had _ditched her. But only for her own safety. Not that she had ever cared much about that.

Then, with just as little warning as with the punch, Astrid lunged forward, wrapped her arms around Hiccup's neck and pressed herself against him, kissing him fiercely despite the crowd that was beginning to gather around them. Hiccup, of course, didn't resist, and probably wouldn't have tried to fight her off even if his head hadn'tstill been spinning from the blow.

"And that's for everything else."

Oh, yes, Astrid was far more enthusiastic today.

**39. Boring **

"So. . . what do you want to do?"

"I don't know. What do _you _want to do?"

"No idea."

Toothless agreed. Today, anyway. Today was just one of those days where the only reasonable thing to do was to sit around with your friends and ignore all the things that people were telling you to do, and just lay there and be _bored_.

Even if it was rather boring.

"Yeah, so. . . um, do you think we should be doing something?"

"Probably. But that doesn't mean I will."

"True. So what do you want to do?"

"I dunno. What do _you _want to do?"

**49. Silence**

Toothless is bound in silence.

He cannot speak to humans in their own language, or in any other language that they would be capable of understanding.

Of course, he manages to make his point even without speech, with his expressive features and excess of energy—but still. For someone as opinionated and charismatic as Toothless, it's a huge blow to be incapable of holding a real conversation. He has so much to say, to talk about, to tell, and yet he is cursed with silence.

So Toothless watches, and observes, and learns, and throws in his opinion when he feels the need, but in his own way, of course. It's not a bad thing, he supposes. Toothless, because he spends so much of his time watching people instead of talking to them, notices more than anyone else in Berk. He knows things about people that even their best friends haven't seen. Toothless may not fully understand humans—he suspects that he never will; they're a very unpredictable race—but he knows more about them than they know about themselves. It isn't a bad existence, really.

But sometimes Toothless wonders, if he wasn't bound in silence, what would he be capable of?

**41. Interruption**

Over time, Toothless has developed an uncanny knack for walking in at the perfect moment (or absolute worst, depending on how you looked at it) in order to interrupt something important. He considers it to be a meticulous and envy-evoking skill, and even if this, too, is a matter of opinion, there is no way to deny that he _is _rather good at it.

For instance, when Astrid finds Hiccup laboring away in the armory where he has been working on his latest invention for most of the day. After an hour or so during which she pesters him with skeptical questions regarding why for the love of Thor he chooses to spend his time tinkering and inventing when there is so much else to pass the time and exchanging witty, mock hostile banter, she finally manages to maneuver him up against the wall, pinning him in place and stretching up to close the short distance between them when—

That's when Toothless, who has been listening outside the door for the last twenty minutes, bursts in, successfully ruining the mood.

**42. Legacy **

Ten years ago, there were six of them. They were the youngest generation of Berk, the youth of the village. They were the six that changed Berk forever. Who transformed a civilization. Who started a legacy. They were the heroes.

But, of course, everybody knows what happens to heroes. They rarely get the happy ending that they deserve.

Toothless knows that today is just more proof that bad things happen to good people. He watches, silent, as once again his world changes. As once again, one of those six, one of the heroes, leaves the others behind.

Tuffnut was the first to go. Barely out of his teenage years when he was killed in a freak accident, a sick, untimely twist of fate that snatched his future away, and stole him from his friends and his twin sister.

Five years and far too many close calls later it was Astrid. That had been a hard year on all of them, but Hiccup in particular had hit an all-time low. He had been enough of an emotional mess when Astrid had been killed, but when Gobber, the man who had mentored him for the last twenty-some years of his life, fell to disease not a month later, he had fallen apart.

And now—today—it was Snotlout. Not seven years after the loss of the feisty golden-haired girl, another of the six heroes met his fate.

Toothless watches with a familiar ache in his heart as Hiccup holds Ruffnut against his chest. She's eight and a half months pregnant, and has just lost her husband the the father of her first child. Fishlegs stands awkwardly beside them, and as Toothless watches them in their misery—which he shares, no doubt—the dragon longs to heal their broken hearts.

Because now there are only three. Of the six heroes who changed Berk all those years ago, only three remain to carry on the legacy.


	10. Chapter 10

**Yes, yes, I know, it's been a while. But here's another chapter that I finally got around to posting. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**43. Protective **

When people said that Snotlout was overly fond of himself, Toothless couldn't help but think that the comment was a major understatement. Snotlout wasn't just fond of himself—his favorite thing in the world was most likely his reflection. He had an excessively large head and a constantly flourishing ego to feed his self-esteem.

It was a bit pathetic, to say the least. That was what Toothless thought, anyway.

However, if there was one thing that could be said for the boy, it was that he was incredibly protective of what was his, including his friends. For instance, if you openly insulted Hiccup in Snotlout's presence, chances were that you were going to lose most—if not all—of your teeth, considering Toothless didn't get you first. If Snotlout ever got wind that you had put in a bad word against Fishlegs, he wouldn't hesitate to deliver the deserved punishment, which often centered around potential loss of sight and/or walking abilities. Shame Tuffnut or Astrid when he was around and you were _very _lucky to crawl away with all four limbs, and if you even looked at Ruffnut the wrong way, your chances of living beyond the next thirty seconds became nearly nonexistent.

As for what happened when you insulted Snotlout himself (or his reflection), nobody really knew what the consequences were.

But only because nobody was brave enough to find out for themselves.

**44. Stairs**

For the first several weeks after the loss of his leg, Hiccup had hated stairs.

Luckily, Berk did not have a lot of them. There was only one large staircase that needed to be accessed by Hiccup on a regular basis, and that was the one that lead to the arena. It consisted of about forty individual steps—a distance that, two weeks ago, Hiccup could travel in about ten seconds. Now it took a good ten minutes. Times about three.

It was during one of Hiccup's harsh, painful excursions up this forty-step staircase that Ruffnut spotted him. This was, in fact, probably the third time that she had walked by since Hiccup started up the staircase, but the first that she had stopped by to talk.

"Hiccup, have you moved at _all _in the last twenty minutes?"

"About. . . ten steps. Why?" Hiccup asked defensively.

Ruffnut rolled her eyes and snorted in disgust. "For the love of Thor, other than the fact that you are completely crazy, I have no idea what Astrid sees in you."

"Yeah, well, let's chop off one of your legs and see how well you—"

He was stunned into silence when Ruffnut picked him up and flipped him casually over her shoulder as if he weighed absolutely nothing, jogged easily up the fifteen or so steps he had left to go, and deposited him lightly beside Toothless, who had been waiting (for a very long time) at the top of the staircase. "You're welcome," she snapped before turning and bounding off the way she had come, heading back to whatever it was she had been doing before she had taken pity on him.

Hiccup stood there, his mouth hanging open slightly as Toothless collapsed onto his side, shaking violently in silent hysterical laughter.

**45. Stars**

Feeling small is a somewhat alien experience to Toothless. Although one of the smaller of the dragon species, he is far bigger than any of the humans he spends so much time around, and thus he has become accustomed to towering over most of his friends.

Occasionally though, he feels very, very small. This feeling usually hits at night, when he looks up at the stars. Many of the Vikings don't know exactly what the stars are, but Toothless knows. He knows how he is nothing but a tiny speck of. . . _something _within a universe that is far bigger than anything his imagination could ever even try to comprehend.

And as much as he doesn't want to admit it, that knowledge scares him. It makes him feel insignificant, unimportant, when he thinks about how incredibly small he really is, as compared to how big he usually feels. It's just plain unsettling to think about—the sheer possibilities of how big everything is, and how tiny he feels when he gazes up at the stars and wonders what lies beyond those little twinkling pinpoints of light, and how far that black nothingness in the sky goes on.

Usually, Toothless feels big compared to his friends. But when he looks up at the stars, everything it thrown into a different perspective.

**46. Gone**

Toothless had once heard someone say that you never really knew what you had until it was gone. At the time it hadn't really struck him as significant, but now the wisdom of the statement had become clear.

Time had not treated his friends well. Not all that many years ago, the seven of them had been inseparable. Unfortunately, as they got older, their loyalties began to waver. And now. . . now they barely resembled the same group of people that they had been when they were younger.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut hadn't been on speaking terms for over a year, and, as of right now, weren't even acknowledging the existence of their twin. Astrid had left Hiccup for Snotlout, who, because of the drinking problem he had developed, was no longer friends with Tuffnut. Fishlegs, because of a brutal and entirely unexpected argument between Hiccup and himself, was being disagreeable with everybody. Astrid and Ruffnut hadn't spoken to each other in weeks, and Ruffnut herself had, by some odd manipulation of fate, become quite close to Hiccup.

Snotlout was a drinker, Ruffnut and Tuffnut were schemers, Fishlegs was anything but friendly, Astrid was overly fierce and ambitious, and Hiccup was. . . well, he was still Hiccup, just sadder than he had been. And Toothless, knocked spinning by the unexpected change in his friends, had no idea where any one of them stood with the other, or where he fit into all this. It was confusing. It was unexpected. It was painful. It was sad and overwhelming and it had happened so fast that Toothless couldn't even remember when it had begun.

But one thing was certain. The old ways—that unique friendship that they had all shared, and not all that long ago—was gone. And Toothless hadn't realized what he had had until it struck him that he was never going to get it back.

**47. Return**

As they walked through the village, the people were silenced. The citizens of Berk stopped, stared, watched as the duo trod the heavily worn cobble paths to the center of the town. One cloaked and limping, and the other dark, powerful, impressive.

It had been fifteen years too many. Fifteen years of worry, of speculation, as Berk fretted over what had become of the two warriors since the day they left. And now they walked through Berk as if they had never left, bedraggled and scarred—but alive—and infinitely wiser than they had been they left fifteen years ago.

In the center of the village, they stopped. Behind them, the crowd that had gathered milled to an expectant halt.

The big black dragon—a Night Fury, as the legend says—watched as his best friend knelt before the Viking chief.

"I'm back, Dad."

And Stoic reached out, wrapping his arms around his long-lost son.


	11. Chapter 11

**Oooh, looky, another chapter up! #49 is dedicated to the only job in the world where you can be wrong every day and not get fired, and the whole chapter to those of you who wanted a chapter that didn't make you cry! Also - #50 is here! We're halfway to a hundred, baby! Keep up the great support you guys. Love y'all. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**48. Cheat**

Toothless focused, resisting the urge to fidget. He was _not _going to lose. Again. If he lost again—for the fifth time in a row—he would never be able to live it down.

He hunched on the ground, flipping his tail back and forth through the grass, and stared. And stared. And stared.

Several inches before Toothless' nose, Fishlegs stared back. And continued to do so for a truly extraordinary length of time. So they stared at one another. And stared. And stared.

And then, quite unexpectedly, Fishlegs whipped his hands up and clapped them loudly together in front of the dragon's face. Startled by the sudden action, Toothless leaped back a good six feet—and blinked.

"Yes! I win again!" Fishlegs pumped his fist in the air in celebration of winning the staring contest for the _fifth _straight time in a row as Toothless sulked, cursing himself for having been sucked in to being taught about staring contests in the first place and ever having been taken over by the sheer addictiveness of them. Addictive or not, his honor was at stake here. And besides, Fishlegs was a cheater anyway.

**49. Weatherman**

"Looks like it's gonna be sunny today!" Stoick exclaimed over breakfast.

Gobber looked up at the sky hopefully, then raised an eyebrow. "And what makes you say that?"

"Look at those clouds—those type never last longer than an hour or so. They'll be gone by noon, I bet."

"Hmm." Gobber looked doubtful.

At noon, Toothless was hunched unhappily underneath the somewhat constricted shelter of a large tree as acorn-sized hail rained down.

Not a week later, Stoick was attempting to predict the weather again.

"Not going to be much wind today I'd say, eh Hiccup?"

Hiccup bit his lip and peered outside at the thunderheads on the horizon. "Um. . ."

That, of course, was the day the kicked off tornado season. But still Stoick figured that his chances of guessing the weather right at least _once _were still in his favor.

"Gonna be a beautiful day, isn't it?"

Toothless, as he hid from the thunderstorm that raged outside not an hour later, decided that it really depended on your definition of the word "beautiful."

Stoick refused to give up.

"It's going to be nice out today, isn't—"

Hiccup exchanged a glance with Toothless.

Gobber, on the other hand, was a bit more blunt. "Stoick, for the love of Thor, you are good at a lot of things, like running villages and killing things that move and looking important, but you _cannot _predict the weather!"

The Viking chief scowled in defeat, but still had to have the last word. "Fine. It was probably just going to rain again, anyway."

It was sunny that day.

**50. Methods**

If there was one thing that Toothless had noticed about Vikings, it was that they were pretty early risers. Most mornings, the majority of Berk was up before the sun (something that the dragon did not understand at all—he quite enjoyed snoozing the day away. What he lacked was a quiet place to do so.)

Unfortunately, Tuffnut had missed this memo; his friends were hard-pressed to get him up before noon, let alone before the sun. Thus, his sister, with the assistance of Snotlout, Fishlegs, and Toothless, was forced to invent a variety of methods that they could use to "convince" him to roll out of bed before lunch.

Luckily for them, the possibilities were endless. When Tuffnut had first developed the habit, they had used all the usual ways: cold water, lots of screaming, bribery with food, and violence. After several weeks though, they had grown bored of these and Tuffnut had become somewhat immune to all of them, and so they had been promoted to get imaginative.

Over the next four months, Tuffnut was pelted with rocks, spit on, set on fire (that one was Toothless' idea), drenched in mud, attacked by bugs, beaten repeatedly with sticks, stripped of his clothing, and bashed with a chair (although nobody knew exactly where the inspiration for that last one had come from). To say the least, he often woke up with an extreme headache, and he went through more sets of sheets in a week than the rest of Berk put together.

The best part by far though, was that he had still not learned his lesson, and insisted on laying in bed until action was forced to be taken. And unfortunately for him and to the endless entertainment of Ruffnut, Toothless, Fishlegs, and Snotlout, the methods that could be used to get him up were _many _in number.

**51. Fail**

When Astrid spotted him, she had to do a double-take. "Toothless. . . what. . .?"

The dragon smiled sheepishly from where he sat in a tree, although 'sat' probably wasn't quite the right word. To be specific, he was stretched out uncomfortably over several limbs about twenty feet off the ground, positioned on his back with his wings at odd angles and his tail wrapped around the trunk. The branches around him were broken and splintered, and leaves fluttered to the ground.

Astrid couldn't help but stop and stare. "Toothless, what on earth are you doing?"

All the dragon could offer was an attempted look of innocence and a slight shrug, which triggered another shower of twigs and leaves, broken off by the subtle movement.

"You're stuck, aren't you?"

Toothless scowled.

Unable to help herself, Astrid burst out laughing. "Oh Toothless, that _fails_," she gasped through her hysterics.

Why, yes. Yes it did.

**52. Listener**

Once in a while, when there was nothing else to do, Toothless and Hiccup would return to the shallow valley in the woods with the lake in the center, that little crater of land that the two of them knew so well from the days they had first met. What they did there was of little importance or consequence—more often than not, Toothless would scamper about in the water, fishing and generally enjoying himself while Hiccup would lay on the grass, staring up at the clouds as he lost himself in his own thoughts.

And sometimes, on certain days, they would have a visitor. Astrid, noticing their absence in Berk, would go off to check their usual hiding places, eventually stumbling across them as they wasted away their day by the lake. She would lay down beside Hiccup, close enough so that their hips were touching, and prop her chin in her palms so that she could watch him.

"Whatcha thinking about?"

So he would tell her. Whatever it was that he had swirling around in his head at the instant she asked him, he would vocalize for her. Be it the ideas for his latest invention or how the cloud above their heads looked like a rabbit or how he was losing his touch when it came to drawing trees, whatever it was, he would tell her—often rattling on forever as he continued to vocalize this thoughts.

And in a completely uncharacteristic show of compassion and interest, no matter how unimportant Hiccup's ramblings were, Astrid would listen.


	12. Chapter 12

**I am writing this from the afterlife, because I choked and died on the fluffyness of #53. Just a warning; that's how bad it is. But oddly, it was fun to write! Anyway, enjoy.**

**~.~**

**53. Clouds**

"Whatcha thinking about, Hiccup?"

"That cloud looks like a rabbit."

Toothless smothered a snort. Oh, the brilliant inventor, savior of Berk, famous for his radical thinking, how does he spend his free time? Looking for rabbits in the clouds.

"Which one?"

"That one. The one I'm pointing at."

"That is not a rabbit. I have no idea what it is, but it's not a rabbit."

"Not that one, the one next to it."

"You mean the one that looks like bird?"

"It's not a bird, it's a rabbit."

"Look, I am _not _going to have this argument with you. Who cares what it looks like? It's a cloud."

"It's a _cloud_? Is it really, Astrid? I had no idea!"

"Stuff the sarcasm, airhead, or I'll do it for you. And I promise it'll hurt, too."

"Oh, I'm terrified. Hey, look, that one looks like a dragon."

Toothless glanced up. Indeed it did.

"That big lumpy one? That's some ugly dragon."

Toothless was offended. He had thought that it looked a little like himself.

"I'm sure it can't help it if it was made ugly."

"Hiccup, it's a _cloud_. It doesn't _care_. And neither do I, now that I think about it."

"You are a tyrant, aren't you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing. Hey, that one looks like. . ." He trailed off.

Astrid looked up. "Now what are you gawking—"

They both went silent for a second. Then Astrid leaped up, ranting at the cloud as she stomped away. "Oh, no way am I tolerating _that_! Birds and rabbits and deformed dragons are one thing, but when I start having my fortune told to me by some stupid cloud, I am _not _going to stick around and wait for inspirational quotes to start popping up on my dinner plate! That is the stupidest thing I have seen all week, for the love of Thor. . ." Her complaining faded into the trees.

Toothless stared after her for a moment, then bounded over to Hiccup, who was still sprawled out on the ground, staring at the sky. He looked at his friend.

Hiccup pointed upward. "Now what are the chances of a coincidence like _that_, do you think?"

The dragon followed his best friend's finger. Far above their heads was a cloud, and although it had already been slightly smudged and smeared by the wind, Toothless could tell that several seconds ago it had been in the perfect shape of a heart.

**54. Instinct**

Toothless has yet to meet a Viking who isn't a warrior. He doesn't understand how it is that an entire race of people—not just one family or one bloodline, but an entire village, an entire _race—_can all be warriors, but that's the way it works with Vikings. They're all fighters. Their styles differ, as to their levels of skill and bravery and experience, but underneath the differences, they're all the same.

Toothless likes to think that he is a warrior, although sometimes he wonders. Warrior or not, he is a dragon. That means that he was born with the ability to fight for what he claims as his own. Vikings, on the other hand, are humans. Few humans are born with the bravery that Vikings possess, which means that their fearlessness in tight spots is not instinct to them; it was taught and learned. Toothless' Viking friends were not born with recklessness, like he was, but as normal human beings, which means that they had to work, to conquer their fears, to push themselves to achieve their level of bravery.

Humans were not born to fight to the death, like dragons were. And deep, deep down, Toothless wonders if he will ever be the warrior that his friends are. Because while some of it comes naturally to them, most of their bravery was acquired by them overpowering their misgivings. But he is an animal at heart, albeit an intelligent one. He was born without fear of challenges—just an internal drive to fight.

The dragon knows that when he fights, he isn't acting on courage, but on instinct. A feeling that drives him to throw himself into battle without a second thought. Because he is a predator. He was born to fight. To kill. And for him that takes no bravery—only instinct.

**55. Lost**

Toothless ducked down as one of the walls of a nearby building collapsed, sending a shower of sparks high up into the dark sky. He couldn't remember exactly when it was that the village had been torched, but it was too late now; there was barely a building in sight that hadn't been touched—or engulfed—by the incredible inferno.

The uncontrolled flames did nothing to quell the battle that raged. Toothless, over the years, had come to accept battle with enemy Viking tribes as an unappreciated but unavoidable part of life.

It also had a rule: kill or be killed.

Hiccup approached from a distance; Toothless recognized the young man's silhouette through the smoke and his gimpy, off-balance stagger of a run. "Toothless!"

Snotlout, who was not far away, was attracted by his friend's desperate call. He decked his opponent, who fell back onto a burning wall in an explosion of sparks, and dashed to the dragon's side, catching Hiccup around the torso to keep him from collapsing as he staggered to a halt. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Hiccup steadied himself with one hand on Snotlout's arm and the other on Toothless' shoulder. Blood from a gash on his temple ran down the side of his face, and he was breathing hard. Searching his friend's faces, he panted, "Have you seen my father?"

Toothless wracked his brain for the last time he had seen Stoick, but there was a sinking feeling in his stomach. The Viking chief wasn't young any more, not by a long shot, and not even someone like Stoick could stay powerful forever. The battle could easily end sooner than expected for him, if he was not careful.

The dragon had no answer for his best friend's plea. But looking at Snotlout, he could read something in his face. The man had seen something, or heard something, that he wasn't willing to repeat.

Hiccup saw the answer he had dreaded in Snotlout's eyes, and fell to his knees.

**56. Tracks**

Walks were something that Toothless quite enjoyed sharing with his friends on days when the weather allowed it, and if ever a chance to go one one arose, he would never be one to forfeit it. He liked just wandering around and enjoying the day, breathing the fresh air, having no sense of urgency or responsibility. (Even though his walks with Hiccup often turned into battles for his life, depending on who accompanied him.)

One of the things that he liked most about walks though was how easily he could identify his friends' exact paths by the tracks they left in the loam. Call him easily amused, but he could always identify who had walked where simply by the distinctive way that they walked.

The twins' footsteps were always identical. It didn't matter if they were running or staggering around or being general nuisances, you could always tell where they walked because their tracks were exactly the same. Astrid's footsteps were similar to the twins', but the length of her stride was considerably shorter than theirs because her legs weren't as long. Fishlegs tended to shuffle when he walked, so his footsteps were always just shapeless smudges on the ground, making them instantly recognizable, and Snotlout stomped when he walked, so he left a deep, detailed trail of tracks in his wake.

It was Hiccup's tracks that Toothless liked best though. They were the most distinctive by far, one the shape of that of a normal persons, and the other a deep, thin, vaguely rectangular gouge left by his metal replacement. His tracks were interesting and different than those of his friends, but at the same time quite similar also—just like Hiccup himself.


	13. Chapter 13

**Whoo-hoo, another five up! I really like this bunch, for some odd reason, even though most of them (especially the last two) are somewhat angsty. Sorry 'bout that, but ah well. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**57. Remember**

"You _have _to remember! You have to!"

Toothless stared at the woman, who was nearly hysterical in her fury, and wracked his brain. Who on earth was she?

"I don't." Hiccup returned the woman's angry glare with a steady look, although Toothless could see the bewilderment beneath his best friend's calm outward appearance.

"Gods, you're just as stupid as you were when we were kids! Look, idiot, look at him." The woman took the little boy at her side by the shoulders and swung him around to stand between Hiccup and herself. "He looks exactly like you!"

Toothless and Hiccup studied the little boy, who gazed back at them with big blue eyes. He had a tangled mop of brown hair, a lanky figure, and in those big blue eyes was a naturally curious, inquisitive look that reminded Toothless of. . .

The dragon studied the angry woman. She looked older, and so much more battle scarred than he remembered, but with that classic disapproving glare it could only be—

"Astrid?"

At Hiccup's stunned whisper, her anger melted away, and she ran her fingers through the hair of the little boy who looked so much like both of them. "Hiccup."

Toothless huffed, and Astrid hurried to redeem herself. "And Toothless," she amended with a smile.

**58. Lonely**

Dragons liked to live in packs. True, some preferred a solitary lifestyle, but there was scarcely a dragon out there who would refuse an offer of friendship from it's own species. There was safety in number, after all, and dragons quite enjoyed an active community. Very rarely would you meet a dragon, of any breed or gender, that didn't.

Toothless was no exception, but there was a bit of a problem with this: he was the only known, living Night Fury.

And sometimes, as honored as he feels to be not just _a _Night Fury but _the _Night Fury, Toothless is lonesome for someone like himself. A dragon of medium size with black scales and the ability to shoot purple fireballs. Another Night Fury.

Not to say that he doesn't value Berk and all his Human friends. In fact, if he was ever given a choice between Hiccup and another Night Fury, he would choose Hiccup without a second thought. But sometimes, he wants to know if he truly is as alone as he sometimes feels. Is he some freak of nature, a one-of-a-kind, never-going-to-happen-again hybrid of a dragon, or are there other like him in some far-off land beyond the horizon?

Toothless loves Hiccup and Berk and all his friends and would never, ever give them up, no doubt about it. But once and a while, he feels lonely.

**59. Senses**

Sometimes, Toothless pities the human race.

They had terrible night vision.

_Thunk!_

Toothless smirked. Hey, Hiccup, there's a rock there.

In fact, human senses in general were shockingly weak. One would expect that a species so intelligent and advanced would also possess some uncanny sixth sense, but unfortunately, it was quite the opposite. Humans could barely use the five senses that they had been given.

_Whap!_

Oh boy. Hiccup was going to feel that one tomorrow.

Even the sheep that they bred had better natural senses than their masters—the sheep, at least, could smell predators sneaking up on them.

It was a pity that Hiccup, walking through the woods with Toothless at night, couldn't see the tree branch coming up.

_THWAP!_

Ouch. Hey, Hiccup, there's a tree there.

**60. Damages**

In the darkness of the summer night, Hiccup and Gobber's anxious whispers carried on the warm air, floating in the open window. Toothless could pick up snatches of their conversation:

"Lucky to be alive—"

"—caused extreme damage. . . it'll take years to rebuild it all."

"I can't believe that there weren't more casualties—"

"—must be a real fighter, that girl."

"—plus a concussion and extreme blood loss, for the love of Thor!"

The dragon lay curled in a ball on the floor by the bedside, his heart aching as he listened to the boy and the blacksmith. A single ray of silver moonlight had managed to find it's way to the window, and it gently illuminated the mangled figure on the bed.

Tuffnut, perched on the edge of the bed with Toothless at his feet, reached out and gently ran his fingers down the side of this sister's face, the side that wasn't marred beyond recognition with deep, ugly wounds. That side of Ruffnut's face, oddly enough, was one of the very few places where she hadn't endured extreme physical damage.

Noticing the dragon's eyes on him, Tuffnut drew his hand away from her face, but still rested it gently on her arm as if his touch was the only thing that kept her in this world, a tender gesture that few had ever seen from him in his lifetime. He turned to Toothless and, with the tiniest of miserable smiles, whispered in a way that broke the dragon's heart, "I don't think we're twins anymore."

**61. Centuries**

Dragons didn't age as fast as humans did. It was a quite drastic difference, actually, the human lifespan compared to a dragon's; it took over thirty years for a dragon to hit the human equivalent of thirteen. Thus, dragons, considering they weren't killed before their time, tended to live hundreds of years longer than any human could ever dream of surviving.

Toothless is old now, even by dragon standards, which is saying something. He knows that someday very soon he is going to move on to wherever it is he's going. But he isn't afraid. He was ready to see the other side of paradise a good fifty years ago, and he never really was one to turn away from an adventure, even in his old age. Arthritis and brittle bones may have squashed any remaining youthfulness from his failing body, but he is still young at heart.

Besides, while there are many wonderful things in this life for him to enjoy, something better waits just beyond his grasp. A bustling Viking village, long ago washed away by the sands of time, and with it all the familiar faces that made it what it was. Although Toothless' memory has been failing him lately, he can clearly recall a set of argumentative twins, a tough dark-haired boy with a rather large nose (that no doubt had played a part in his naming), a peg-legged old blacksmith, a fierce blond girl with a battle ax and a wicked temper.

And a boy. A plain, ordinary looking boy with one leg and one unsure father, who was willing to see beyond a dragon's scales and into the soul beneath. One boy who can be nothing more than an ancient, forgotten pile of bones by now, but who accomplished more in one short lifetime than anyone else Toothless has ever met.

They linger just beyond the dragon's reach, whispering to him, and he is ready to meet them now. He is ready to go back to Berk. And the boy. The boy he met, all those centuries ago.


	14. Chapter 14

**Yay, chapter 14! The first three are something of an angst-fest (I'm sorry! I don't know what's gotten into me!) but the last two are cute. And for #66, the ages of the characters were never really said, so I got to have some fun there. If anybody _really _knows about their ages, tell me, and I'll change it. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**62. Tomorrow**

They stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the brink of the cliff, the chilly sea wind ruffling their hair and clothing as they watch the masses of giant, crudely-made warships gather on the horizon, sweeping across the open expanse of blue water like a pack of predators, a focused swarm of piranhas.

With Fishlegs on one side and Hiccup on the other, Toothless gazes out over the ocean, watching as his enemies close in on Berk, slowly but steadily. Silence hangs heavy between them—Berk may have dragon, but by the sheer amount of ships that have already coasted into sight and the many more that continue to spill over the horizon, it looks like their enemies are going to have the advantage of numbers.

Astrid turns and pins Gobber with her fierce gaze. "How long 'till they attack?" By the sound of her voice, she's already preparing herself for battle.

The blacksmith exchanges a glance with Stoick, who runs an experienced eye over the approaching ships. "Dawn tomorrow."

Toothless stares at the horizon.

The sun is setting.

**63. Burn**

Hiccup almost never gets angry. Frustrated and upset, now those do happen occasionally, but very rarely does Toothless find his best friend to be angry.

But when he does, it's scary. It isn't a loud, violent, yelling-and-screaming kind of angry, but a kind of silent fury that makes people realize that if the boy hadn't been cursed with a low pain tolerance and an inability to put on weight, Hiccup would be a spectacular warrior. In fact, it seems to be one of the very few things that he had in common with her father—only Stoick's anger could rival that of Hiccup's, as far as Toothless was concerned. Even Astrid's Death Glares couldn't compete.

The dragon couldn't really fathom why it was that Hiccup's anger was so much more intense than that of most other Vikings. Maybe it was how his poise changed; subtle tweaks in the way he held himself gave the boy more of a feral look, like a raging cat ready to spring, that made it clear that he wasn't in a mood to be messed with.

Or perhaps it was the attitude. Hiccup had never had much of an attitude other than a streak of witty sarcasm and an ability to partake in well-meaning arguments. But when he got snippy and disagreeable and prowled by with that telltale stalk, even Snotlout (who could not for the life of him take a subtle hint) knew to get out of the way.

But Toothless has a sneaking suspicion that it was the eyes. The quiet fury that echoed inside of him escaped through the boy's eyes in a dark, smoldering burn. And now, as Toothless watched his beloved Berk as it was engulfed by a roaring storm of electric yellow flames and waves of popping, snarling sparks, even that powerful fire couldn't match the shadowy, forbidding burn that raged in Hiccup's eyes as he watched his village fall.

**64. Innocence**

Vikings, Toothless has realized, are never given much of a chance to be children.

Right from the beginning they're taught to be competitive and ruthless, and from the moment they can walk they're trained to carry a weapon. Instead of playing and following around their parents and being children, they're being trained to fight and kill.

In a way, the dragon figures that it's somewhat of an achievement for Berk, managing to raise children for war without turning them into murders and serial killers. But at the same time there's no doubt that it's a questionable way to raise one's child, teaching them battle strategies and war cries instead of nursery rhymes and the alphabet. Even Toothless can remember having more of a childhood than that—at least he hadn't been forced to memorize the thirty-two soft spots on a human body that were guaranteed to produce instant death and/or paralysis upon being hit with enough force.

And when war does break out, Berk doesn't teach it's children to be safe, as perhaps it should, but instead teaches them to want to be part of it. To _want _to draw their weapons and race to the front lines and put their lives in danger. Toothless might not know too much about raising kids, but he figures that at the very least, any sensible parent would teach their child to run _away _from the bloodshed—certainly not into it.

And then there's the killing. Before Toothless and his kind had been welcome in the Viking village, Berk had been no stranger to kelling the dragons along wither Viking enemies. Maybe that doesn't happen anymore, but sometimes, when Toothless looks at his friends and thinks about how the first thing they ever killed—and at such a young age—was a dragon, he feels slightly sick. He doesn't hold it against them, however, because they are his friends and those days are behind them all, but somewhere in the back of his mind he feels a twinge of resentment against their parents, who raised them to be that way.

Because even though they taught their children strength and loyalty and bravery that defines them as warriors, they also taught them savagery, right from the beginning.

And when a child is taught to kill, when they lose that special innocence that defines them as children, they are not a child anymore.

**65. Two **

"You know, you should really get out of here more often. I think all the fumes from that forge are going to your head."

Toothless grinned—he had understood Hiccup's last sentence perfectly well. It wasn't the boy's fault that Astrid had a very limited vocabulary in comparison to his, and therefore translated a good half of what he said as pure gibberish.

Hiccup sighed and stopped hammering on the piece of metal he was working on so that he could inspect it. "You wouldn't believe how often I get that."

Astrid shrugged and hopped up on the table, leaning back on her hands and kicking her legs restlessly. "Well then, maybe it's true. And considering how much Gobber complains about you, yes, I _can _believe how often you must get that."

Ah, but everybody knew that Gobber was full of hot air, Toothless reasoned.

"Gobber complains about everybody," Hiccup said, thinking along the same lines as the dragon. "Besides, if he was really worried about me, he'd tell my father, and they'd attempt to beat some sense into me."

"It wouldn't work though, would it?" Astrid pointed out slyly.

"Well, no, probably not," Hiccup admitted, and went back to his project.

Astrid watched him for several minutes before growing bored. "C'mon," she said, sliding off the tabletop on an impulse and grabbing Hiccup's wrist.

"What?"

"The heat in here is killing your brain cells," the girl said, dragging him toward the door.

"But—"

"Shut up," Astrid advised him.

Toothless watched her drag his best friend out the door and into the sunshine, but he did not follow, instead curling up to take a nap. Something told him that this was only a walk for two, and that he was not invited.

**66. Elders**

Age was not something that crossed the minds of Toothless or his friends very often. The dragon himself had never really thought about it, and considering how Hiccup and the rest were having difficulty remembering who was oldest (although how one could forget, Toothless didn't know), apparently age didn't matter much to them either.

When it had been determined, Snotlout punched the air in a celebratory fashion. "I'm oldest!"

"Only by three weeks," Astrid, who had been deemed the next eldest, pointed out.

"I still think I'm older than him," Ruffnut complained, pointing to her brother. The twins were the two youngest in the group, although the true holder of that title couldn't really be proven, since nobody could remember if it had been Tuffnut who had been born ten seconds before his sister, or the other way around.

Fishlegs, who was third oldest—three months younger than Astrid and four weeks older than Hiccup—considered Toothless. "How old is he?"

Hiccup thought for a moment, trying to gauge exactly how old the dragon would be. "Um. . . fifty. . . no, say sixty something. Sixty-five, probably, at the very least.

The dragon smirked triumphantly, and Snotlout pouted.

"Dang."


	15. Chapter 15

**Alrighty people, another set. These aren't my best, I don't think - #68 and #69 are kind of weak, but ah well. The other two are good. Also, #67 is a request from the marvelous keep_me_posted, who wanted a Ruffnut/Fishlegs theme. I can't say it's as good as I wanted it to be, but here it is! In other news: We've hit seventy drabbles, people! We're closing in on a hundred! Woot! Enjoy. **

**~.~**

**67. Talkative **

There was only one Viking in Berk besides Hiccup who bothered to read merely for enjoyment, and that was Fishlegs. And, in the traditional fashion of Viking youth, his friends were forever reminding him that this was more than a little bit . . . well, _weird_, or very un-Viking-like at the absolute least.

In addition, Fishlegs had developed an advanced vocabulary compared to that of his friends, and was constantly frustrating them with complex sentences full of long words with lots of syllables. Like Hiccup, Fishlegs prided himself on his knowledge of obscenely large words, and, similar to the one-legged boy, he received more than enough blank stares in return.

Toothless, however, had noticed that there was one situation in particular where Fishlegs' eloquence always failed him miserably.

"What are you doing? Are you _reading_?" Ruffnut bounced up, her usual energetic self, and practically pounced on the table Fishlegs was seated at, with her knees on the bench and her elbows propped on the tabletop, her chin resting in her palms.

It was after a somewhat unintelligent question such as this that Fishlegs would usually make some attempt at a sarcastic remark that was completely lost on the recipient because of the excessively large words he used. This time, all he managed was an unimpressive, "Uh. . . yeah."

"Why are you _reading _when it's so nice outside? It's the first sunshine we've had in weeks!"

"Um. . . because, um—"

Ruffnut peered at the book, which was upside-down from her angle, and raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't you at least go read outside? It's a lot better than _this_," she said, gesturing at the dark room they were in.

"It's, er, yeah. . ."

The girl raised her eyes from the book and studied Fishlegs across the table for a minute. "Not too talkative today, are you?" she asked.

". . . uh. . ."

After another moment, Ruffnut laughed. "You're _crazy_," she told him fondly, and Toothless rolled his eyes. He could guess what was coming next.

". . . But I like that."

Fishlegs blushed a truly incredible shade of red and stuttered something unintelligible as Ruffnut skipped away, grinning slightly as she did so.

**68. Found**

His best friend says nothing to him, but Toothless knows what Hiccup is searching for as he maneuvers his way through the village.

Berk had won the battle, thank the gods, but it had come at a price. All around them, the surviving Vikings are only now beginning to start patching up the damage: collecting the dead, repairing buildings, taking note of destroyed food supplies and missing livestock. In the distance, Toothless can hear Stoick barking orders, and the two of them had already checked up on their other friends; Ruffnut and Fishlegs were fine, Tuffnut had suffered only some slight blood loss, and Snotlout had taken a nasty blow to the back of the head and would be out cold for at least another twenty-four hours, although he too would recover in time.

Only one of them was missing.

They didn't yet know if she really hadn't been seen since the battle, but nobody they had asked had noticed her. It was possible that she had just been busy on the other side of the village and was perfectly safe—but there were several other options, far less pleasant, that were equally likely.

But luckily their anxiety, however strong it may be, is short-lived. A familiar figure emerges from the dust, bruised and limping but no worse for wear, and she breaks into a run when she spots them.

The tightness in Toothless' chest melts away as he watches Astrid wrap her arms tightly around Hiccup's neck, relief visible on both their faces as they revel in the discovery of something that, for a short time, they had been on the verge of losing.

**69. Freefall**

Toothless had always been a bit of a risk-taker, to say the least. Seeing how he enjoyed a good adventure, and danger didn't scare him, the dragon was one of those who liked to "live on the edge," more or less. He also quite liked involving others on his stunts, and Hiccup was always a prime victim. Toothless would often reenact their first real flight together, that incredible freefall what was insanely fun—as long as there was no danger of hitting whatever lay five hundred feet below them.

The only bad thing about this habit was that Hiccup had somewhat mixed opinion of these entertaining plummets. If he was feeling adventurous and energetic, he often enjoyed the adrenalin rush as much as Toothless did—and _that _was fun. Other times, depending on his mood, his reaction was far less interesting and he would pretend to ignore the fact that he was freefalling, although how one could convincingly attempt to totally ignore the fact that they were sitting on a dragon who was careening down through empty air from an incredible height, Toothless didn't know.

And sometimes, the dragon's antics would be completely unexpected and take the boy by surprise. This was far more entertaining than when Hiccup tried to ignore the freefall, even if they were unnecessarily loud—you see, there was lots of screaming involved.

**70. Experimentation **

"Oh, _now _where did that lad go?"

Toothless lays in the weak sunshine that trickles through the gray clouds above, watching as Stoick stomps by for the third time, looking for his son. Upon noticing the Night Fury watching him, the Viking chief sighs and slumps down beside the great black dragon. "Have _you _seen him lately?"

Toothless offers the powerful man a slight smile, but doesn't bother to reply. He has a general idea of where Hiccup is, but where the boy goes, the destruction created by his latest experiment can't be far behind. The dragon just doesn't have the energy for that today.

Stoick frowns. "I thought not. He's probably off, oh, what is it he's into these days? Collecting plants? I found him digging up mushrooms the other day, for the love of Thor."

The dragon smothers a huff of laughter. That had been the day that his best friend had been sure that he had been on the verge of a scientific breakthrough, and mushrooms were the key. However, that brilliant idea hadn't lasted long, and now he was experimenting with explosives.

Luckily, his father hadn't learned that. Yet.

Stoick eyes the dragon, obviously wondering why he is napping in the sun instead of following Hiccup around and assisting him with his latest scheme. "What's he up to now, anyway? Something too boring for you—breeding fungi, maybe? That sounds like his kind of thing."

The dragon shakes his head lightly. That craze had already come and gone. Besides, it wasn't that today's experiment was boring—in fact, it was a bit too exciting for the dragon. He didn't feel like dying from smoke inhalation right now, or blowing strangers' houses to bits, or whatever it was his best friend was up to at the moment.

"No?" Stoick's frown deepens. "What is it then? Is he dissecting something?"

Again, Toothless shakes his head. Thankfully, there had been no dissecting going on lately. The dragon eyes the sky—he's expecting something any minute now.

"Is he doing those weird human reflex tests again? Because I swear, if he jumps out of a bush at me with a rat _one _more time, I'm disinheriting him."

Oh, those reflex studies had been an adventure alright, and not the kind of adventure that Toothless wanted to repeat. Having a mad scientist for a best friend was fine, but bringing down Astrid's wrath upon their heads because he made her jump was not an experience that anybody would want to relive.

"So he's not chasing people with rats." By this point, Stoick looks on the verge of a panic attack as he dreams up all the possible destructive things his son could be doing. "It can't be good, because obviously, you want no part of it," he tells the dragon.

Oh, Stoick has no idea. The dragon opens up an eye, giving the Viking a _I warned you _look.

Three. . . two. . . one. . .

Right on cue, an immense black mushroom cloud of smoke leaps into the air on the other side of the village, pinpointing Hiccup's location.


	16. Chapter 16

**Alrighty, so another chapter up. Most of these are pretty good, except #75, which I think sucks, but you'll have to decide for yourself. Personally, #73 is my favorite of this bunch, and as for #74, you're going to have to have an open mind about that one, okay? I didn't really know where I was going with it when I started writing it, so it kinda just composed itself. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**71. Abuse**

_Whump!_

Toothless cringed as, ahead of him, his best friend was squashed unceremoniously into the ground.

"What was _that _one for?" Hiccup demanded of his attacker as he spit dirt from his mouth, sprawled out on his stomach.

Astrid, who had dropped from a tree branch onto Hiccup's head and was still seated casually on his back, smirked. "I'm toughening you up."

"Why?"

"Why not? Have you seen yourself lately?"

Hiccup had had this conversation before and apparently rather wanted to avoid it. He sighed. "Can you get off me, please?"

Astrid thought for a moment. "No."

Toothless blinked. They might be there for a while. . .

"Why not?"

"Because I don't feel like it. And if I do get off, you'll just run right back to the armory and hole yourself up in there with your latest project for the next week."

"You just like to abuse me," Hiccup concluded.

Astrid grinned. "Well, you _are _a pretty easy target."

"Brilliant."

**72. Untouchable**

Flying was their way to escape.

It wasn't running away, exactly—if they had wanted to run away, they would never come back—but more of a way of outrunning their troubles. When Toothless and Hiccup flew, it was their way of escaping the world and all its problems and gather their wits. The air was the only place where they could never be caught, unless, of course, they wanted to be.

After all, they _needed _an occasional escape, for the love of Thor. As Hiccup got older, he became more and more of a candidate to take his father's place as chief, which meant that Berk expected a lot from him. In addition to the pressure of politics, he also had to worry about restoring the armory, and Stoick's waning health, and being drug from one end of the village to the other to fix this and that for somebody, and generally being too busy to spend time doing anything particularly enjoyable.

Toothless, being Hiccup's designated shadow, spent most of his time following the Viking around, and when he wasn't doing that he was off being bored and lonely and useless because Hiccup's daily activities had become repetitive and boring as of late, and there was only so many ways to amuse yourself.

So some days, when Hiccup got sick of being yanked around to do this or that and having everybody always staring over his shoulder, and when Toothless had once again been denied face time with his best friend, they would go flying. It was a welcome release from the petty activities that went on below them, and nobody could find them or tell them what to do or ask that they come running—it was just the two of them, doing one of the things that they most enjoyed.

And for a while, they were untouchable.

**73. Gullible**

"Hey Dad? Mom said something about you yesterday."

Hiccup looked up from where he was working at the forge, suspicion written on his features. "What did your mother say this time?"

Toothless watched as the boy, the spitting image of his father but luckily blessed with his mother's physical capabilities, hauled himself up onto the table to sit and watch Hiccup work. "She thinks you're crazy."

"Oh." Hiccup rolled his eyes slightly and went back to his project. "Well, your mother is overly opinionated."

"What's that mean?"

"It means that she talks a lot."

Toothless grinned. _That _much was true, at least.

"She said that Toothless thinks you're crazy, too," his son reported.

"She said that, did she?" Hiccup flashed the dragon a look. Toothless smiled innocently. "And do _you _think I'm crazy?"

The boy shrugged, looking sheepish. "I dunno. But Grandpa Stoick says you're crazy."

Hiccup frowned. "Well, tell your Grandpa Stoick that he has a few screws loose himself. Besides," he said, suddenly serious as he looked his son in the eye, "if _I'm _crazy, then you're probably crazy, too."

His son's eyes widened. "_Really?_"

"Yep. If your grandpa's crazy, and your dad's crazy, then chances are you're going to turn crazy someday pretty soon."

The boy looked at Toothless, aghast, and the dragon nodded in agreement with Hiccup. "I'm gonna go ask Mom," he decided after a moment, looking caught somewhere between skepticism and horror. He leaped off the table and raced away to ask Astrid if this worrisome statement held any truth.

Hiccup winked at Toothless. "We're gonna pay for that."

**74. Stranger**

The world, as Hiccup and Toothless had come to discover, was a very big place. Not all of it was wonderful, and not all of it was awful, and Thor knew that there was more in it than could ever be discovered.

Some people, the duo had discovered, were shallow minded. Others were far more diverse and crazy than even Hiccup and Toothless themselves. Some things were for sure though—they had come to realize that Berk was quite a small and isolated place in the long run, and that dragons _were _found in places other than the far north (although not where you would expect), and half of their adventures bordered on the extraordinary and were not going to be believed by the residents of the Viking village they called home.

Another thing about traveling: you were _always_ a stranger, and at the same time, you never were, because believers like them (and nut-cases, and dreamers, and survivors, and every other type of person or being imaginable) were always there to share a good laugh or story with—even if you had to look for them.

Take, for instance, the young man wiping down tables in the nearly-empty pub in some well-traversed island that the two travelers are spending the night at. He strikes both Viking and dragon as the type who has seen everything—and, indeed, the type who enjoys a good tale.

"So, what's your story?" he asks Hiccup conversationally, sizing up Toothless with considerable respect. In a place such as this, there's no doubt that he gets a number of wanderers every night who have seen more than their fair share of the world and everything it has to offer.

The Viking raises his eyebrows and smiles slightly. "You probably wouldn't believe us if we told you."

The waiter grins, and they know that he is one of those not-so-strangers who, like them, has been around the block a few times in his day.

"Try me."

**75. If**

Toothless has a mixed opinion about the word _if_.

It's so open, so unpredictable, that it's quite a wonderful thing. And yet it's scary. _What if _is, after all, like having all the world's possibilities in the palm of your hand. _What if _you died tomorrow. _What if _you became fabulously rich. _What if _your best friend got excluded from his father's will for blowing up his house (accidentally or otherwise).

If is chance, and luck, and fate. It's the good with the bad, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. It's what keeps people going, keeps dreams alive, and fuels hope.

Toothless isn't the type that commonly walks around, pondering the deep meaning of two-letter words—that's more Hiccup's thing, the nerd—but _if _catches his attention.

After all, the dragon likes opportunities and dreams and goals, and _if _embodies all of them.


	17. Chapter 17

**Alrighty everybody, so another chapter up, and I like this bunch a lot, if I do say so myself. #76 is dedicated to Dawnstar08, who wanted one where Toothless couldn't fly, and I think it turned out alright. Lotsa angst ;D Anywhoo, enjoy!**

**~.~**

**76. Longing**

To a dragon, flight was _everything_. Flight was _life_. Thus, life without flight was nothing.

Of course, you could try to distract yourself. For years and years you could try to forget the fact that you were a dragon, and yet you could not fly. Key word there: _try_. You could try to forget, and you could tell yourself that it worked, but—it never did. Not really.

Toothless had been lucky. The day he had lost his tail fin, he had been lucky enough to stumble across a friend with a sense of duty strong enough to drive him to not only befriend the Night Fury, but return to him his natural abilities of flight. It had been years ago now, but Toothless could still remember when he first felt that unique longing that burst into flower inside of him when he had realized that he _couldn't fly_. It was a longing unlike any other—a desire to regain something that had been with you since birth, then suddenly and painfully ripped away. Toothless had been lucky—he met someone who, with some patience, no understanding of the phrase "give up," and a good dose of inventive genius, could take that longing away.

His luck hadn't held.

Now he perches on the precarious, collapse-prone edge of one of the many cliffs near Berk that juts out over the wild sea, his face turned to the horizon and his body leaning into the wind, attempting in vain to replicate the sensation of flight. The breeze ruffles his outstretched wings—although the dragon is loathe to call them that. The limbs are more like lace now; delicate and thin and tattered beyond usefulness with holes. Destroyed by fire, they can no longer come even close to holding his weight in the sky. They serve no purpose other than to stand as a painful reminder of what used to be.

The longing is strong, stronger than Toothless had ever thought possible. It's almost a physical pain by now, or at least he imagines it is. He wonders what is going to happen when he can no longer subdue the longing that boils and smolders inside of him.

Because this time, there's no one to take it away.

**77. Babysitter**

Babysitting, while not one of Toothless' favorite pastimes, was something he often found himself doing. He wasn't one hundred percent sure if wrangling destructive Viking teenagers really counted as "babysitting," but it certainly was a job of epic proportions.

Instead of having to prevent them from chugging mud or getting lost, as he would have to if they were ten years younger, he had to worry about slightly bigger things—like having them destroy small cities, make scientific breakthroughs that enabled them to teleport for short periods of time, and violently kill one another. It was a dangerous profession, and unrewarding (although every day that went by without a fatality was indeed a reason to celebrate).

To keep his patience from dwindling, Toothless often insisted to himself that it was good practice for life. When Hiccup had kids, they would have the best babysitter in Berk; those kids wouldn't be able to _sneeze _without the dragon knowing about it. And compared to what Hiccup put the dragon through—the whole teleporting business, that episode with the rats and the reflex tests, the uranium craze, Astrid's threats of violence, the twins' dramatic "death scene," the Experiment That Can Not Be Named—a killer flu epidemic would be, like, nothing. A case of the sniffles? Psh.

Unless, of course, the kids turned out like their parents and their parents' friends. In that case, Toothless was doomed.

**78. Outnumbered**

Panic was not a sensation common to Toothless. The very fact that he was on the verge of feeling it was nearly as scary as the situation that triggered the emotion. He was struggling with it as it welled up inside of him, attempting to drive it away before it overcame him and put his senses on lockdown.

Vikings from the regions even farther northward had all but taken Berk. In a village crawling with the enemy and nearly barren of it's citizens besides those who lay dead on the ground, three remained: Hiccup, Ruffnut, and a ground-bound Toothless.

Backed up against a wall, it wasn't looking good. Toothless was wounded and incapable of flight, and Hiccup, while not as painfully scrawny as he had been in his youth, still looked like he could be stepped on and squashed underfoot by even the smallest of their adversaries. Ruffnut may have been able to hold her own and escape, but Toothless knew that she was too good a friend to leave them here to die alone, and so she was in danger, too.

_Don't panic_, the dragon ordered himself. _Don't panic, don't panic, don't—_

The man who had been eying Ruffnut in a way that made Toothless want to rip the guy's throat out—a big ugly jerk swathed in obscene amounts of furs who looked like he could smash through walls with his forehead—looked down in surprise at the ax blade growing from the middle of his chest. The silver weapon was ripped away, and before he had even hit the ground the hulking warrior next to him had met a similar fate.

The panic building in Toothless' chest melted away when he saw the bright eyes and the grim, determined smile that had arrived with their usual spectacular timing.

You were never outnumbered with Astrid around.

**79. Pointless**

Ruffnut and Tuffnut were at it. Again.

"You are _such _a sexist pig!" Ruffnut exclaimed as she grappled with her twin brother, kneeing him viciously in the gut when he tried to get his arm around her neck and strangle her.

"Yeah well," Tuffnut grunted as he blocked her blow and struck out at her head, "if you weren't so high and mighty all the time, we wouldn't have this problem."

His sister tripped him swiftly, and he drug her down to the ground with him. "_You're _one to talk," she snarled as she fought to pin him down.

In the typical fashion of male Vikings, Toothless and Hiccup, accompanied by Snotlout and Fishlegs, had been watching the fight unfold and not doing a thing about it. Why interrupt the free entertainment?

Tuffnut landed a hard blind-side blow on his sister, momentarily stunning her. She retaliated by kicking him in the ribs and jarring the air from his lungs. Astrid, attracted by the commotion, appeared just in time to watch the twins roll by, spitting profanity at one another. She looked from them to the rest of her friends, who were leaning against trees and watching casually.

She frowned. "What is it this time?"

Snotlout didn't take his eyes off the fight as he replied. "No idea. Somebody said something that ticked somebody off and now they're ripping each other's throats out."

"Nothing unusual," Hiccup added. None of them seemed to be making any moves to stop the attempted sibling slaughter.

Astrid looked caught somewhere between disdain for the male species and mild amusement. The twins scrambled by again, trying to draw blood, and she sighed and sat down beside Fishlegs. "How pointless."

**80. Directions**

"Okay so, we are. . . here?" Hiccup peered at the map. "Eh, no, never mind. Maybe we're here."

Toothless sighed. Never, ever again was he letting Hiccup be in charge of reading the map. It was a wonder they had made it this far.

The boy squinted against the sunlight. "Oh, it's upside down." He flipped it around, then frowned. "Okay, no it wasn't. What on earth does that _say_? For the love of Thor, there's no compass on this thing."

They were walking through the woods. A very large woods, apparently, because they had been in it for several days. Either that or they were going in circles. Toothless was pretty sure that was the case.

Hiccup glared at the piece of paper. For being an inventive genius, Toothless noticed, he needed some work on his map reading skills. "You know what?" the boy said. "I give up. We're flying." He tossed the map over his shoulder and hopped up on his friend's back.

The dragon looked wearily at the boy. _Which way do we fly, then?_

Hiccup shrugged. "How should I know? Go. . ." He pointed in a random direction. "That way. We'll hit civilization sooner or later."

Good enough.


	18. Chapter 18

**Alright, so here's the next four. I was going to post one more with this batch (and it was the request from a reviewer), but I had to do some research on it, and then I got confused and had to research again, and then I got distracted, and then I was procrastinating. So it never made it. But, it will be in the next chapter. Anyway, I rather like these, even if they aren't my favorites by a long shot. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**81. Breathe **

"Astrid. Astrid—_look at me_. It's going to be okay."

Toothless wasn't sure he agreed; the dragon had never seen so much blood in his _life_. It seeped from Ruffnut, drenching her clothing and staining her fair hair the color of rose and gathering around her in what could only be described as a puddle.

And now, instead of being reassured and comforted as she lay upon the ground, sinking farther and farther past the point of no return, Ruffnut was the one doing the reassuring. Astrid knelt beside the girl—her boots and knees stained a sickly red from Ruffnut's pooling blood—and clutched her best friend's hand hard enough to turn her knuckles white, obviously on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Toothless didn't blame her; the sheer amount of blood was enough to worry even the most seasoned warrior.

"It's going to be alright," Ruffnut wheezed, her voice terrifyingly quiet and hoarse. "Look at me, Astrid." She was wracked by a violent coughing fit, and dark blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Toothless—who was unconsciously holding his breath—wished her brother and Hiccup godspeed on their race back to Berk to fetch a medic.

Up to this point, Astrid had kept her eyes either closed or averted from the sight of her best friend sprawled out on the ground, but now—still kneeling and, like Toothless, holding her breath—she raised her eyes to meet Ruffnut's.

With her rapidly dwindling strength, Ruffnut squeezed Astrid's hand. "It's going to be okay," she promised quietly. Then: "And for the sake of the gods, breathe before you pass out, will you?"

The tiniest of smiles flashed at the corners of Astrid's lips, and at Ruffnut's request she stopped holding her breath and exhaled deeply, and Toothless followed suit. At the same time, defying her own advice, Ruffnut's blood filled lungs began to fail her, and her already painful breathing paused with an agonized hiss—and Toothless stood rooted to the spot, hoping, praying that she would take another breath.

**82. Kaleidoscope**

They weave their way down the crowded street, marveling at the spectacular scene like the tourists they are. Surprisingly, in a place such as this, the young man and the dragon are but one more curious duo amid hundreds of others, and Toothless decides on the spot that of all the places that Hiccup and he have seen in their travels, this is one of his favorites.

It's a marketplace, set on the cobblestone main street of an ancient, sprawling stone city, a lively gem in the heart of the largest known jungle in the world. One might not expect such an isolated place to be so multicultural, but this narrow, crowded street is perhaps the only place Toothless has ever journeyed where there are multiple sights that have received more odd looks than he. It's amazing to look at, and the people are fascinating—loud, turbaned vendors marketing their wears, brightly dressed black-skinned women with baskets of fruits balanced upon their heads, men with ridiculous feather hats and buckles arguing with natives adorned in beads and facial piercings, people from the far north, like Hiccup, easily recognized by their distinctive wardrobe of furs, children with tattooed skin racing among the crowd and pickpocketing the unwary. The many languages that float on the warm air are just as interesting, as are the smells from the vendors and the objects that can be traded or sold—many of which Toothless suspects would be illegal in any other atmosphere. There are animals in abundance, creatures of all shapes and sizes with an array of fur and feathers and scales, many of them just as striking and large as any dragon.

It's a mind-blowing display, and Toothless finds that he loves the colorful chaos. And as he follows Hiccup down the street, he begins to wonder why there can't be more places in the world like this, where the very world itself comes together in a bright, explosive kaleidoscope of culture and lifestyle for curious souls like him to explore.

**83. Three**

It was three in the morning when the knock came at the door—a rapid, frenzied pounding that suggested that the knocker was working themselves into a state of panic. Toothless opened his eyes and simply lay there on the floor for a minute, unwilling to acknowledge the atrocious hour of the morning.

From the bed, Hiccup groaned and hauled himself into a sitting position. He exchanged a bleary-eyed glance with the dragon that made a clear statement: _uh-oh_. After all, nobody knocked on your door at three in the morning unless somebody had died, you were in trouble with the law, or Armageddon was approaching. None of which was pleasant news to receive in the wee hours of the morning when you were still half-asleep and staggering around in your nightclothes.

Hiccup sighed and drug himself from his bed, hobbling off in the general direction of the door with Toothless in his wake. He got the door open on the third try (which Toothless figured was an accomplishment, considering their present state of consciousness) and slumped against the doorway in exhaustion. "What happen—"

He was tackled by Astrid, practically picked up and spun around, and deposited none too gently back onto the floor while she hopped up and down on the spot, breathing hard, as if she had just been running for a while.

Toothless blinked rapidly, his tired eyes unable to completely focus on her as she bounced around. Hiccup peered at her. "Astrid, what are you—"

She intervened again before he could finish his question, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him as she hopped up and down and yelled: "We're gonna be parents!"

**84. Empty**

If Toothless hadn't been in such a state of shock, he would have been mystified. What lay before Hiccup and him was a phenomenon—it entirely defied the laws of nature. And as incredible as it was, it was equally terrifying.

The place was completely deprived of life. It was an entire village, an entire community that was _barren _of living things. But that wasn't even the spooky part. What really made Toothless' skin crawl was the way that that everything looked so _normal_. He had expected a barren city to be ransacked or ruined, but the place seemed for all the world as if it were just any normal day. Food lay on tables. Beds were made. Weapons were put away. Fires crackled in fireplaces, untended, as if they had never been left. It was picture-perfect. And yet. . . it wasn't.

There were no living things. No humans, no animals, no dragons, no bugs, nor was there a breeze or even any noise. It was eerily silent and still, far past the point of unnatural.

But perhaps the worst part was the familiarity. It was Berk, just as it had been the day they had left, years and years ago. And yet. . . it wasn't.

It was empty.


	19. Chapter 19

**I learned something the other day - this movie doesn't come out on DVD untill OCTOBER 15? That's, like, two months away! I am going to _die! _I swear. . . -grumbles- Anyway, in other news, there are two drabbles in this chapter that are requests from reviewers. #86 is loosley based on a suggestion from Farming Chick, and although it's not quite what they wanted, I hope it's enjoyable. #88 was suggested (a long time ago) by DOTB18, and although it took me a while to write, I think it turned out rather well. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**85. Wishes**

Toothless had learned that wishing for something could only take you so far. Wanting something and wishing for it only got you a little way—it was hard work that got you the rest. But sometimes, when he spotted that star above his head that glittered just a _little _bit brighter than all the rest, he couldn't resist requesting something, just for the sake of it.

He didn't really expect his wish to come true, and if by some miraculous twist of fate it actually did, he probably wasn't going to credit the star. The dragon knew that wishing on stars was a waste of time to practical people, but that certainly didn't mean that he wouldn't do it anyway.

So he perches alone on a rocky ledge above the rolling sea, his neck craned back, the little pinpoints of light reflecting off his eyes as he studies the night sky. Smiling slightly to himself, he finds his star and focuses on it, and tells it his wish.

_Please, please, please, please, please. . . _

**86. Darkness**

Toothless was not afraid of the dark. More specifically, if ever he did get scared during the night, it was what was _in _the dark that frightened him—not the dark itself. He had once heard a saying that urged him not to fear what lingered in the dark, because even though you could not see it, it couldn't see you either.

What this saying neglected to mention was that those who dwell in the dark usually had spectacular night vision. Understandably, it didn't make him feel any better.

So when he finds himself back-to-back with Hiccup and Fishlegs in the middle of the forest one moonless night, he isn't ashamed to admit to himself that he's afraid. Not of the dark—that thick, forbidding, heavy blackness that isolates them from each other and the rest of the world—but of what navigates the dark. Of what can see them, even though they can't see each other. Of what he knows is there, because he can feel it, _hear _it from time to time, a gentle swish of vegetation or a single stealthy step, just beyond his reach.

Toothless is not afraid of the dark. It's what waits within those black tendrils, watching him with gristly amusement, completely invisible, that he's terrified of.

**87. Observations**

"What are these?"

Hiccup glanced up at Astrid, who had found a large box beneath the table filled with leather-bound books. He shrugged. "Just journals," he told her before going back to assembling his latest gadget, some complex gizmo with lots of parts that even Toothless couldn't figure out.

Astrid picked one up and flipped through it. "What's in them? There's a ton of the things."

"Notes," Hiccup told her absentmindedly.

"Sciency stuff, then," Astrid muttered, rolling her eyes at Toothless. The dragon grinned—she hadn't even read any of it yet.

She opened to a random page full of Hiccup's hastily scribbled thoughts and observations. "If it glows in the dark, don't eat it," she read out loud.

"That's good advice," Hiccup threw in. "We were sick for a week."

The dragon nodded enthusiastically as Astrid shook her head and flipped a page, apparently not interested in what exactly it was they had eaten. "What is _this_?" she asked, studying the complex sequences of numbers and letters that graced the pages.

Hiccup glanced up. "Chemical reactions. See that one on the end? You could destroy a small city with that one."

Astrid gave him a questioning look.

"Just saying," he assured her hastily.

She closed the journal and tossed it back into the box, where the thirty-some others lay. "You know, Hiccup, I worry about you."

**88. Similar**

When it came to making friends, Toothless had decided that there really were no rules. His own group of best friends was so diverse in personality and interest that who was he to say that birds of a feather flocked together? Diversity was nothing uncommon to Toothless.

However, he had noticed something. While his human friends seemed to have no specific requirements with their companions—other than a good sense of humor and no qualms about getting beaten to a pulp on a regular basis—and dragons were similar. To the dragons of Berk, species didn't matter, nor did personality. It all just depended on if you _clicked _or not. However, when it came to a dragon choosing a specific human that they found a friend in, it was something else entirely.

Other than Toothless and Hiccup, nobody in Berk—dragon or Viking—considered that they actually "belonged" to someone else, but they sure were picky about who they socialized with when mingling among the other species; Toothless' human friends tended to migrate toward the dragons who reflected their personality.

For instance, Astrid's favorite dragons were the Deadly Nadders. Toothless could definitely see the resemblance: bold, strong, good at making a statement, equally as good at beating people up. The similarities between Fishlegs and certain Gronkles barely needed to be stated; all you had to do was look at them. The same could be said for Snotlout and the Monstrous Nightmares that he attracted—both had a shockingly large egos—and the twins and their Zipplebacks; two heads, two personalities, but one being in the end.

Sometimes, Toothless wonders what brought Hiccup and him together. They weren't particularly similar in any big way, after all. But then it occurred to him.

They were both crazy.

**89. Distracted**

If you were a friend of Astrid, it was pretty much a given that you were, at some time or another, going to be subjected to some well-meaning abuse. Like Hiccup, Toothless was no stranger to this, nor were the rest of their friends. If anything, they had become experts at getting her off their back—just cower fearfully and pretend that you were intimidated (although pretending usually wasn't necessary) and she would let you out of her clutches that much faster.

Unfortunately, Snotlout had not yet learned this.

Arguments between Snotlout and Astrid were just as violent and interesting to watch as physical fights between them—and a lot louder, too. However, unlike with the fighting, Snotlout couldn't hold his own against her for as long as one would suspect, and after about fifteen minutes of shouting himself hoarse he started to visibly weaken. That was the cue for someone to intervene and save him from being bested by a girl who was four inches shorter than him (not that this was a very rare occurrence).

Some days, it was Ruffnut who would volunteer to save Snotlout—being Astrid's best friend, she was more often than not capable of distracting the girl long enough to allow her victim to escape. Tuffnut had a more violent tactic: simply land a blind-side blow on one or the other and start a fistfight. (It was an unorthodox method, but effective. At least it stopped the shouting.)

Other times, like today, it was Hiccup who had to come to Snotlout's rescue, and when this happened, he used an entirely different tactic to distract Astrid

"You are absolutely _the _most—_What?_" She whirled away from Snotlout to scowl at Hiccup, who had tapped her civilly on the shoulder.

"I was sent to distract you," he told her truthfully.

Astrid rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well give me a minute." She turned back to Snotlout, who had not even had time to take a step, and had barely opened her mouth when Hiccup tapped her a second time. This time though, before she could start yelling again, he stepped in and kissed her when she turned to look at him.

Several seconds later when she shoved away, looking slightly dizzy, she seemed to have momentarily forgotten about her argument with Snotlout. At least until she caught sight of his retreating form from the corner of her eye, and looked momentarily torn between slapping Hiccup and chasing her victim down again before turning on her heel and taking off after Snotlout, yelling the whole way. "Hey, you get back here and face me like a man!"

Hiccup grinned up at Toothless from where he lay, sprawled out on the ground where he had been pushed. "You can't say I didn't try."


	20. Chapter 20

**Yay, another chapter! The last one was an absolute blast to write, if I do say so myself, and is my favorite of this bunch. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**90. Trinket **

Hiccup and Toothless have acquired quite a few interesting odds and ends during their travels; so many, in fact, that they are no longer capable of carrying them all in one bag, and several so large that they could never fit in a bag anyway.

Some of these trinkets are souvenirs that the duo have bought from a market with their own currency or picked up off of a beach themselves or stumbled across while running for their lives or something equally pleasant. Others—most, in fact—are gifts bestowed to them by various people from the far corners of the world. Some of Toothless' favorites include a beautiful shimmering feather from the tail of an exotic bird called a peacock (a gift to the two of them from a community of curious island-dwelling natives), a very interesting shrunken head (an object used for witchcraft in a place where people build large buildings called castles for undeserving old rich men, and a souvenir that Toothless insisted on owning even though it scared Hiccup witless), and a long necklace of delicate silver chain links with a small pendant made from a rather hypnotizing precious red stone (illegally acquired, although they hadn't known that at the time).

Some of the dragon's least favorites include a large gray rock the size of his head (long story), a towel (very boring), and a molding slab of unrecognizable and inedible meat that Hiccup threw out almost immediately after receiving. They didn't let anyone ask how they had managed to come into possession of the offensive thing.

However, as inconvenient as it was to travel with all of these trinkets, it was always fun to come back to Berk and show them off. Astrid was always very enthusiastic about what they brought back with them, and she never missed a chance to dig through their ever-growing collection of foreign objects. At one point she finds a hinged leather box about the size of her hand that she had never noticed before, and inside lay an elegant circular brooch made of gold, inlaid with diamonds, and decorated with intricate and complicated designs. She holds it out to Hiccup. "How did you get this one?"

That brooch in particular had been a reward to the two of them for rescuing the princess of a village of dark-skinned people from a land of sand dunes, hot winds, and rattlesnakes. The young woman herself—a scantily clad beauty with ebony skin and knives hidden in odd places, who could give Astrid a run for her money in quite a few things—would have been enough of an adventure to encounter even if they hadn't had her ill-tempered captors to deal with. The princess's village had all but worshiped them for returning the girl in such a heroic fashion without demanding payment—what they didn't know was that Hiccup and Toothless hadn't been aware at first that the woman was either royalty or a captive, nor had they known they would be rescuing her until she herself was loudly demanding that they do so. But if they had known then that the experience was going to turn into a two-week odyssey of running from homicidal kidnappers with a high-maintenance, dagger-slinging princess who didn't react well to flying on a dragon, they might have turned and walked away right there.

In other words, the brooch was well earned.

But instead of going into all that, Hiccup just shrugs and says, "Oh, we picked it up somewhere. I don't even remember exactly where, actually."

**91. Complicated**

"Fatherhood is so complicated," Stoick complained one evening while visiting Gobber and Toothless in the armory.

The one-legged blacksmith sighed. "What did your son do this time?"

Toothless smiled. What _hadn't _Hiccup done?

Stoick leaned heavily on the table. "Oh, he's just being. . ."

"Hiccup?" Gobber suggested.

"Something like that," Stoick said, massaging his temples in an attempt to ease his headache. "He just makes me feel so _bad _at being a father sometimes, you know? I don't understand him."

Gobber rolled his eyes. This was not an altogether unfamiliar rant, after all—the blacksmith had become something of a stand-in therapist for his old friend over the last several years. "Stoick, if there's _anybody _on this planet other than that dragon who understands your son," he said, gesturing to Toothless, "then by all means, send them flowers and ask for lessons."

The Viking chieftain ignored the blacksmith's comment. "What am I supposed to do, anyway? I mean, what do dad's do?"

"Well, I'd suggest—"

"Maybe I could cook for him," Stoick mused. Then a look of dawning horror spread across his features. "Is _that _why he's so skinny? Is it because I didn't—"

Gobber gave the man a look. "That's the last thing you have to worry about; that lad of yours eats more than I do. If there's one thing that certainly isn't your fault, it's the fact that your son's girlfriend weighs more than he does."

"My son has a _girlfriend_?"

Toothless grinned.

"You know," Gobber said, realizing that this conversation wasn't going anywhere, "that is, in fact, a very complicated question about one of those strange teenager things that old geezers like you and I wouldn't be able to understand. Why don't you just go ask him about his latest whatever-it-is that he's making? It would make his day to know you're interested."

"Are you kidding?" Stoick exclaimed. "Those gadgets he makes are dangerous! I'm gonna lose a limb if one of those things goes off when I'm around."

"Join the club," Gobber said dryly, and Stoick cringed at his poor choice of wording and rubbed his left leg unconsciously.

"Why didn't we have these kind of problems when we were teenagers?" he wondered out loud.

Gobber smiled at that.

**92. Progress**

"Hiccup, what was it that—whoa!"

Snotlout stopped and blinked at his friend, glancing sideways at Toothless, who was cowering under a table.

Hiccup looked up from where he was scribbling notes on a piece of paper, the table he was hunched over (and under which Toothless was hiding) littered with glass vials of varying sizes and shapes, each filled with a different amount of some sinister looking liquid. He grinned at the look on Snotlout's face. "What's up?"

This was, in fact, quite disturbing considering the fact that one or more of Hiccup's mysterious vials seemed to have exploded while the boy was still in the immediate proximity. There was a smoking ring on the table, scorched black by some explosion or another, and Hiccup's face was painted a similar color. His teeth were startlingly white against his soot-stained skin.

Snotlout stepped tentatively closer to the table, where several of the vials were smoking copiously. "I came in here to ask you something, but, uh, I can't remember what it is. What are you _doing_?"

That, Toothless thought, was a question best not answered.

**93. Speechless**

When it came to confronting Astrid about matters that would possibly make the young woman throw a fit and start hitting things, it was always Hiccup who was called in to do the dirty work. After all, he was the most language-savvy of the village, and could usually relay her the news without working her up. or just use so many large, barely-pronounceable words in his sentences that he told her exactly what was going on without her understanding a word of it, thus avoiding a fit. Or, if all else failed, he could always hit her with the never failing kiss in the middle of one of her endless rants, which would usually shut her down for a good ten seconds or more.

This time, however, he was reluctant.

"Absolutely not! She's going to _kill _me if I ask her that," Hiccup exclaimed, fighting in vain to wiggle from Snotlout's iron grasp on his arm.

"And if you _don't _ask her, _we _are going to kill you," Ruffnut informed him. "Seriously, she'll take it well, I promise. She's been going crazy for months about it. You have, too."

"Just put us all out of our misery," Tuffnut complained. "I'm getting sick of all the moping. Seriously, Astrid hasn't beaten me up in weeks—that's how I know you need to ask her."

"And he's not even the observant one," Fishlegs threw in.

Toothless had known Hiccup for over ten years now, and even the dragon couldn't remember seeing him so unwilling to approach the fierce young woman. He offered his friend an encouraging smile that was too amused to be genuine.

Snotlout moved his grasp on Hiccup from the man's arm to his shoulders. "There she is. Now go. Now!" He gave Hiccup a hefty push in Astrid's direction.

"You're not going to let me out of this one, are you?" Hiccup asked.

The answer came back, loud and collective from all four, accompanied by a stern head shake from Toothless. "No!" Added in as an after thought was a: "You'll thank us for this later, I promise," from Ruffnut.

Twenty awkward seconds later, Hiccup was down on one knee in front of a speechless Astrid.

"Will you marry me?"


	21. Chapter 21

**Yes, yes, I know, it's been two weeks. I'm sorry! But it's up now. So, to answer a question that I've gotten a lot lately, I will _not _be stopping at a hundred. I will keep this fic going as long as I can. On the other hand, sooner or later my ideas are going to hit the fan and I'm going to run out of insparation, so I would _love _some requests from you guys. I might not use them all, but if I do I will credit you and forever be grateful. :) Not much else to say, other than the last one is an absolute angst party, and it might be confusing. I don't really want to explain it because I want all of you to interpret it the way you want to, but if you REALLY want my way of looking at it, you can certainly ask. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**94. Cook**

It started with Toothless catching a whiff of _the _most foul scent he had ever encountered. He didn't quite know how to explain it; it wasn't particularly rancid or sour, like something that had rotted, nor musty and overwhelming, like mold, but more smoky. Like something was _burning_, to be exact. The only problem with that theory was that Toothless had never come across anything that smelled quite like _that _when it burst into flames.

The scent began to grow stronger, and by the time Hiccup inhaled it for the first time and immediately walked into a tree, Toothless was gagging.

"What is _that_?" Hiccup demanded, covering his mouth and nose with his hand, and Toothless shrugged, looking pained as he buried his face in the grass. "It smells like—like. . . I don't even _know _what that smells like," he admitted, his voice muffled.

It was then that Fishlegs came stumbling through the trees, looking for all the world like he was asphyxiating. "Do _not _go that way," he advised Hiccup breathlessly. "The whole village reeks!"

By this time, Hiccup was starting to look worried, and Toothless could tell that he was wondering if it was one of his numerous experiments-in-progress that had unexpectedly decided to explode. "What is it?" he asked Fishlegs.

The other boy yanked the collar of his shirt up around his ears to cover his mouth and nose and started walking away from the village again, Hiccup and Toothless now in tow.

"Astrid's cooking."

**95. Sick**

It seems to Toothless that his best friend has truly remarkable timing when it comes to coming down with an illness.

For instance, it seems that he quite often has a tendency to be unexpectedly struck with nausea (which he swears is contagious) either during or right before many of his fighting lessons with his peers, and then does everybody a "favor" by running off and disappearing for the rest of the day. Despite Gobber's insistence that he _really should _be brushing up on his fighting skills—along with many other things—Hiccup is dedicated to his theory that if he is present at training, half the village will come down with a killer flu.

Gobber has decided not to fight it, and whenever Hiccup claims sick in training (which unfortunately seems to happen whenever there are weapons involved, or Astrid, or Thor forbid, Astrid with weapons) he simply sighs and waves him off.

Some of Berk's elders wonder if there is something in the arena that the boy is allergic to, pollen or brick dust or something else that might trigger an unexpected change in health, but seeing how Hiccup's illness is a recent development, Toothless is reluctant to agree.

However, nobody seems to mind really, claiming that they'd rather see Hiccup tucked into bed and recovering rather than passed out or vomiting in the middle of the arena during training, but Toothless thought that bed was probably the last thing on Hiccup's agenda once he staggered off, groaning something or other about a rolling stomach. More often than not, he would insist that a nice relaxing flight with Toothless was what he needed, and would only want to touch down several hours later, when training was—sadly—long over, or that a nice long walk in the woods was calling his name.

And sometimes, he would work on his acting, wanting Toothless' opinion on his most recently acquired illness. The dragon thinks that the measles is a little overkill, but a very nasty case of the common cold . . . now _that _one might work.

**96. Bells**

They love the bells.

They make an odd sight, perhaps, the young foreign man and his scaly black beast sprawled out on the steps of the mighty building with the many brass bells above them, but nobody can deny that, of the many things they have seen and experienced on their travels, the bells have every reason to be one of their favorites.

Some of the locals wonder what their place and purpose is here, two strange, wandering souls of unclear religion completely at home on the steps of the church, but the Father knows—he promises the two that, whatever paths their journey may lead them on, the Viking and the dragon are always welcome to visit the bells that they love so much.

Toothless is grateful. He loves the glorious church bells, another of the world's wonders that is so unlike anything in his home in the far North. It's a simple affection that he can't quite explain, an unreasonable adoration of inanimate objects, but when he hears the bells sing, he sometimes wonders just how inanimate they really are. It's music in it's simplest form—a series of single, strategically timed notes that, when combined, create a sound that is completely original.

And he loves them. He loves what they stand for, and the stories they tell, and how their wonderful simplicity doesn't hinder their abilities in any way. The people may wonder about the purpose of the Viking and the dragon, but as long as the bells are there and they are welcomed guests, it doesn't matter to them.

Because they love the bells.

**97. Mocking**

Insanity has no rules. People can tell Toothless different, explain about the causes and the patterns and effects, but he doesn't believe it. What do they know, anyway? They can't tell him what it's like to be insane—they're perfectly normal. But Toothless; _he's _the expert on what it's like to be out of your mind. After all, according to Berk, he's the insane one.

It isn't something he's proud of, but half the time he couldn't care less, anyway. When you're insane, peoples' opinions of you don't matter much, after all. He doesn't even notice anymore when the villagers turn their eyes away and whisper sympathetically to each other when he walks by, or how only one person has spoken to him regularly since the day it happened.

Toothless can't tell you exactly when he lost his mind. It wasn't as if he woke up one morning and realized that he was nuts, but when he thinks about it (not that he does, much) he knows that it didn't happen over a long period of time, either. No, he doesn't know exactly when he went insane—he just know that he is, and has been for a while, and probably will be for quite a long time to come.

It's actually pretty easy for Toothless to tell that he's not in his right mind. After all, he can remember when he was less totally insane and just a little bit crazy, back before he went stark-raving mad but after he was taught to think outside the box. He can remember that, back then, inanimate objects didn't mock him, didn't trigger memories that would make his breath hitch and his head spin and drop him to the ground in misery the way they do now. _You weren't there_, those memories whisper. _Why weren't you there? Is it because you're not good enough? Because you weren't a good friend?_

He hates those voices inside his head that whisper those things. He tries to remember, tries to recall the day to see if the voices are lying or not, but whenever he does it only hurts him more, hurts his head and his soul and his heart, so he stops. He's decided that he's rather not know the truth than be killed by it.

Besides, the voices know the truth. At least they claim to, anyway. _We know what happened, Toothless. We were there. _You _were there, too. Why do you deny what you __did, what a failure you are? Wouldn't it just be easier to come to terms with the fact that you missed your chance to make a difference? _

Some days, he knows the voices, recognizes them, and those days are the some of the worst. Other days, the most terrible of them all, are when they don't just talk to him, but also listen to what he has to say.

_So what are you gonna do about it? _

Probably something stupid, he tells her.

_Good idea, but you've already done that._

Then . . . something crazy.

_That's more like it, but I think you're a little beyond that point._

I know, he tells her. Then he adds: I'm sorry.

_I know you are. Don't do anything _too _stupid, okay?_

And he smiles, because that little voice in his head sounds so much like her. But then he realizes how insane he is, and all he wants to do is find a dark little corner to curl up in and never get up again. But he won't. Because no matter how miserable he is, no matter where his insanity takes him, there is one person left in Berk that he couldn't leave if he wanted to.

In the opinion of his village, Stoick the Vast is just as insane as his son's dragon. Toothless isn't sure if he agrees—Stoick isn't as insane as he is lonely. No longer the chieftain of his beloved Berk, and with nobody left to live for, he has no purpose in his old age. Like Toothless.

Sometimes, just for something to do, the two of them will go for a little walk that, more often than not, will lead them to the graveyard. That open clearing, filled with row upon row of unmarked gray rocks, each about the size of a human head. Gravestones.

There are about fifty of these graves that were dug and filled at the same time, their occupants all the victims of the same war. However, there are six in particular that they are interested in, and although the gravestones are unmarked, they know exactly which six they are. Toothless counts them—_one, two, three, four, five, six—_and the voices in his head count along with him. He knows who's where in what order and why, because he was there when they were buried.

Sometimes, when he visits, it makes him feel better. Other times, he swears that he can hear them, their voices mingling with the ones in his head, nightmarish in their mocking. _Why weren't you there, Toothless? You were supposed to be there. You could have saved us. We did so much for you, and this is how you repay us?_

I know, I'm sorry, he tells them.

_Too late. _


	22. Chapter 22

**YAY! DRABBLE 100 HAS ARRIVED! WHOO HOO! *throws party* This is amazing, you guys. When I wrote the first five drabbles, I had no idea that they would morph into this crazy monster fic collection. Not that I'm complaining. :) Anyway, I'd first like to dedicate #98 to DOBT18, for giving me the prompt with the weapons, and #99 to TheCrazyArtist for giving me the word "switched" to work with. Paraxenos, I know that you gave me a great idea too, but yours came in after I had already thought up these five so it didn't make it in. It'll be in the next batch though, promise. Also, congrats to Snotlout, for being the star of the long-awaited #100, and to keep-me-posted, for submitting review number three hundred. And (I'm almost done, just hang with me) .4ever2010, I know we were in the middle of a PM conversation when I unexpectedly didn't reply to you. I'm sorry. I got distracted, and forgot about it. I'll get back to you, like, now, if I can find your PM again. Please forgive me. And thanks for getting me this far, everybody. This chapter is for all of you. Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**98. Armed**

There are many things distinctive about the look of a Viking, Toothless has noticed. They have a look that is entirely unique to them, a certain aura that can only be found in the people from the far north, that sets them apart in a crowd.

There are many things that contribute to this, the dragon has decided, from their wardrobe of furs to their unique language riddled with a variety of creative swearwords to their telltale buff body build. However, there's something else, something a tad bit more subtle, that, while not a characteristic only found in Vikings, still defines them: they are always armed to the teeth.

Toothless has seen many races that constantly arm themselves, but few as obviously or as heavily as his Viking friends. He's not sure _why _they insist on always looking (and acting) like they're marching off to war, and he thinks that they could probably do just as well without the display of brutality, but knows that he would probably lose any argument that he started over the subject. At any cost, he thinks, at least he gets a good insight at their character.

For instance, the weapons that Toothless' friends carry with them reflect their personalities quite well. Like when choosing dragons, they unconsciously go right for the ones that best reflect who they are—Fishlegs, for one, displays obvious favoritism for large, heavy objects with witch to hit people, as does Snotlout, and they both enjoy weapons such as hammers and clubs and staffs. Astrid, of course, has an ax that weighs thrice as much as she does that she swings around as effortlessly as she would a small tree branch, and can use in a great variety of different ways, from beheading people with the blade to dealing blows with the heavy handle. The twins seem to have a slight obsession with everything shiny and sharp—Ruffnut, for example, was once asked to reveal just how many small knives she could conceal on her person. She came up with over twenty, sliding them out of innumerable odd places, such as beneath her helmet, hidden in her boots, up her sleeves, and strapped and pinned to unusual places beneath her clothing.

Toothless came to the conclusion that there was probably a reason that she rarely was hugged, and that her boyfriend must cut himself a lot.

Her brother was a bit less secretive with his weapon-wielding, and was in possession of a truly unnecessary large sword that was nearly half as high and heavy as he. Most people thought that this was a bit overkill, but Ruffnut says he's compensating. Just what for, exactly, is a mystery.

And then there's Hiccup. As far as Toothless knows, his best friend has broken away from the norm and doesn't make a habit of carrying deadly weapons. He does, however, have a large collection of heavy glass vials and beakers for his experiments that would make excellent projectiles, and a vast knowledge of chemical reactions.

And this, the dragon thinks, is very unsettling.

**99. Switched**

Toothless knows that thinking is considered a very dangerous pastime in the village of Berk, but sometimes, when he's in a sentimental mood, he often finds himself brooding over the "what if" factor. It's just something he does when he has nothing better to pass the time—applying a "what if" to any given situation that he's encountered lately, and thinking up all the scenarios that could have become of it.

Sometimes, he wonders what would have become of Berk if Hiccup hadn't been in it. And this thought leads to another one: What would have become of him? And then, sometimes, he thinks about what he would have done in Hiccup's place. What if their roles had been switched? What if it had been the boy who was hurt and at the mercy of the dragon instead of the dragon who had been shot down and wounded that night?

Toothless likes to think that he would have acted the way Hiccup did. That he would have the curiosity and the compassion to disobey the rules of the far North's harsh food chain and reach out to touch the life of a stranger, however different they may be from him.

He likes to think that, even if their roles had been switched, things would still have turned out as good as they did. But he wonders.

**100. Mercy**

Snotlout battles alone on the other side of the clearing, easily holding his own against any of Berk's invaders who attempt to cross blades with him and escape with their lives. Although only in his late teens, the boy is a prodigy on the battlefield, dominating the corner of Berk that he defends. Illuminated by the fires that run rampant through the village, engulfing everything in their path, he reminds Toothless of some war god, merciless and powerful and deadly as he defends his home from those who wish to take it away.

As Toothless watches, Snotlout's next opponent melts from the shadows and lunges for the boy—a man, older than most who willingly involve themselves in petty activities such as war, with graying hair and many years of wisdom reflected in his eyes with the light of the fires that his comrades had started. Snotlout whirls and meets him head-on, and for a moment, the two are matched, their blades crossing with the harsh screech of steel upon steel and a quick shower of sparks. Snotlout's raw power is unable to dominate the experienced moves of this seasoned warrior, and the man cannot find a chance to land a blow through the boy's speed and strength. Then, as fast as thought, Snotlout feigns left and the man lunges, fooled, and the tip of Snotlout's blade catches the handle of his opponent's, sending it spinning out of sight. The old man stumbles back, defenseless as Snotlout comes in for the kill—until he's knocked from the danger zone.

The boy who had rammed himself into the man and knocked him away, voluntarily taking his place at the tip of Snotlout's blade, cannot be any older than Snotlout himself. Fair-haired and baby-faced, he's sprawled on the ground and glaring up at Snotlout with a mixture of terror and sheer determination. He is willing to die to protect this old man, although the relationship between them is unclear—friends? Father and son? Mentor and student?

For another moment, Snotlout hesitates, surprised by the sudden sacrifice and frowning down at the boy who presently has the tip of Snotlout's sword pressing into his neck. A few feet away, the old man gets up from the dust, trembling violently, his wise eyes softer now, sadder, scared—and pleading.

And after a moment of indecision—during which Toothless holds his breath—Snotlout removes his blade and steps back, allowing his prey to scramble away unscathed. He lowers his head slightly, once, in a gesture of retreat, understanding, respect . . . and mercy.

**101. Quiet**

Sometimes, it's the quiet moments that Toothless cherishes the most. Small, unimportant, inconsequential moments when, for once in their lives, none of his friends are trying to kill one another.

It's those little things that he doesn't think about often, but make him smile when he does, those rare times when no yelling is required to make a point, that leave an impression on him. They come in a variety of forms, from sitting on the riverside with Tuffnut in silence for no reason other than a little moment of peace, to noticing the heated arguments that Ruffnut and Astrid manage to have with only overly-dramatic facial expressions and pointed looks, to a small grin shared with Stoick whenever Hiccup runs by yelling about life-changing scientific breakthroughs and not noticing that his hair is on fire.

Little things, quiet things that you usually wouldn't notice. For instance, a few precious minutes of dead silence between a group of friends, when they all follow some subconscious calling that draws them to the same rock ledge high above Berk to watch the best sunset of the year. For once, there are no death threats, no complaining about boredom, no violent wrestling matches over who gets to sit where. They simply sit, and watch, and enjoy each other's company, and prove that sometimes the best bonding moments are the ones that come wrapped in silence.

**102. Crossroads **

On one of their many travels, they stumbled upon a crossroad. A place in the earth where one well-worn path met another, and created a perfect "x" in the middle of the wilderness, cutting a sorry scar through the lovely, lush forest. They walked until they stood upon the point, in the very spot where all four of the roads became one and all options were open to them, awaiting their choice.

Of the four roads, three were obviously traveled extensively. They were wide and smooth and beaten down by many pairs of feet, purposeful and professional, straight and true, and very, very boring. The fourth and final of the paths was something else entirely—winding and rough and overgrown, a mess of a road, canopied by leaf-laden branches and home to many half-hidden tree roots just waiting for the next fool to trip over them. It was dark and wild and adventurous, everything that the other three roads were not, with the sound of birdsong heavy in the air and the glitter of curious eyes blinking out from the underbrush. Enticing. Forbidding. Abandoned.

Hiccup and Toothless took the road less traveled. And it made all the difference.


	23. Chapter 23

**Alrighty, so #103 is from Dmazie, who gave me the word "dove," which inspired me. #104 came from a prompt from Paraxenos, and I think it turned out pretty well. #105 came from a suggestion by Mary Penelope, and is personally my fave of this bunch. Lotsa angsting, muahahaha! Anyway, I know it's been awhile, and I'm sorry about the wait, but I was procrastinating :P Enjoy!**

**~.~**

**103. Dove**

The two of them sat in silence, the sun filtering down through the leaves above their heads as they relaxed and watched the busy-bodied little birds for no reason in particular, besides the fact that they were just the strange sort of souls who did that. The birds themselves had forgotten about the misfit duo long ago, and they went about with their natural and quietly fascinating business, the dove especially.

Neither bothered to move when the little white bird alighted on the forest floor in front of them and hopped about for a bit, complaining and cooing to itself charismatically. Nor did they stir when it took wing and vanished into the greenery for a while, then returned, landing closer this time, so close that Hiccup could have reached out and touched it had he wanted to. It studied them for a minute, then seemed to deem them acceptable, and demonstrated this by flapping up onto Toothless' back after regarding him for a mere moment.

Upon feeling the slight dig of the mourning dove's talons along his spine, Toothless got the urge to roll over and dislodge the little creature, but he fought it. He could feel Hiccup's eyes on the bird, and see the slight smile on the young man's lips—Hiccup was, after all, sentimental enough to enjoy the irony of the situation. Toothless was massive and powerful and dark, strong enough to knock over trees and crash through walls, and this delicate, fragile, and obviously insane little bird had decided to sit on his back when Toothless could step on the little thing and not even notice he had done so (although he would probably feel bad afterwords).

The dove paraded around a bit, and Toothless ground his teeth together in agitation when it pranced across his shoulder blades, but he did not move. And after it had made it's presence known and established that it was obviously in charge of the situation here, the bird pushed off, and was lost in the foliage once again. It had decided to trust Toothless, and the dragon had followed through.

Hiccup smiled slightly at Toothless before raising his eyes to the treetops once again, and neither moved again for the longest time.

**104. Bystander**

Toothless does not pretend to be an expert at reading people, but there are a few cases where he is pretty confident when it comes to interpreting expressions. And just as he doesn't pretend to be an expert of the human race, he won't pretend that he doesn't know exactly what's going on inside Stoick's head when he sees his son choose the company of his friends and Toothless over that of his father.

Toothless does not have children—although considering how much trouble Hiccup gets into and how much Toothless goes around trying to fix his problems, that is debatable—and he doesn't intend to have them anytime within the next couple hundred years, thank you very much. But the dragon fancies that he has a pretty fair idea of how Stoick the Vast feels about being stood up by his son.

The man is, when it all boils down, heartsick.

He has no family besides his only child, and if ever there was a chance of the two of them having a successful father-son relationship, it was dashed when Hiccup's mother died. Stoick never was one to embrace the world outside of Berk, and when he finds that he has a son who all but walked off another planet, he is unable to make the connection. Unable to forget the fact that, no matter how hard he tries, he is never going to have a proper Viking for a son and that Hiccup is always going to ride dragons and read books and conduct a variety of dangerous and disturbing experiments.

So when he is reminded again and again that Hiccup would rather socialize with overgrown, mute, flying lizards rather than him, he is understandably hurt, and disappointed, and angry.

But not at Hiccup, or even Toothless, really.

After all, it's his own darn fault that he's nothing more than a bystander in his son's life.

**105. Survivors**

Toothless touched down in the middle of the forest, out of range of the smoke that billowed from the burning village of Berk, and nearly collapsed. Blood had been trickling from a deep gash on the side of his ribcage for the entire half-hour long flight, and his head was spinning and his vision was blurred and all he wanted to do was sleep.

Hiccup slipped down from the exhausted dragon's back and knelt beside him. The boy hardly looked any better—he was bleeding and limping, and had a far-away look in his eyes that suggested a severe case of battle shock. The only one who had any energy was Astrid, who all but leaped from her perch on Toothless, whipped her ax from her back and threw it for all she was worth with a yell of frustration. It spiraled through the air faster than thought and stuck deep into the trunk of a tree, quivering.

Radiating fury and frustration, Astrid stomped over and ripped her weapon free, whereupon it left a pale wound on the mighty tree. She looked worse than Hiccup, despite her demonic energy, with blood soaking through her shirt and trickling from her nose, a black eye, and a steadily darkening bruise engulfing one side of her neck.

She buried the blade of her ax into the loam at her feet with a violent downward swing and another infuriated cry and leaned back against the nearest tree, breathing hard. Beside Toothless, Hiccup hadn't moved. He stared off into the distance, focusing on nothing, his face scarily expressionless. The boy looked dead.

Astrid looked up at them, her hair falling across her bruised face, and Toothless could see all the mixed emotions that Hiccup presently lacked reflected in her eyes. "Do you think anyone else made it out?" Her voice was quiet, in contrast to all the yelling she had done.

Hiccup's only response was a slight, noncommittal movement of the head that could be interpreted as anything. Astrid exploded unexpectedly. "Of _course _nobody else made it out!" she yelled, more to herself than anybody else. "Gods, how could they? The whole village went up in an inferno! There's no _way_ anybody but us got out! It was _impossible_!" She whirled , yanked her ax from the ground, and sent it spinning again. It disappeared into the forest, and Toothless heard the _thunk! _as it embedded itself into another tree, but she didn't go get it.

Astrid deflated as suddenly as she had blown up, and she sunk to her knees with a strangled gasp. "Of course nobody else made it out." Her voice was quiet again, and quavering. "We're the only survivors."

Nobody replied.

**106. Sink**

"Fishlegs . . . why don't you like water?"

The boy gave Ruffnut a sideways look. "What are you talking about?"

Ruffnut glared at him pointedly. The two of them were walking along the beach with Tuffnut and Toothless, making themselves scarce since Stoick seemed in the mood for giving out jobs today. Hiccup, Astrid, and Snotlout had already been enlisted to run errands, and so their friends—ever so helpfully—had decided to become temporary fugitives and escape Berk. Toothless had considered sticking with Hiccup for the day, but then had been offered a walk on the beach. Only a fool would choose scrubbing pans and hauling carts and putting up with Astrid's moodiness over a nice walk on the beach.

"What do you mean, what am I talking about?" Ruffnut demanded. "You go to incredible lengths to avoid water. Why?"

Fishlegs frowned, but he was too honest to lie. "Well . . . it's deep."

"Not always," Tuffnut said.

"But you never know," Fishlegs insisted. "And I don't like deep water."

"Why not? You just have to swim."

"That's kind of the point."

"What, you mean you can't swim?"

"Well . . ." Fishlegs stuttered a bit. "I mean, it's not like I, um . . ."

Tuffnut gave him the classic _are-you-kidding-me? _look, and he broke.

"I sink!"


	24. Chapter 24

***cowers behind bush* Please don't kill me! I know it's been, like, a month since I updated, but I have been totally braindead lately. Anyway, #108 came from an idea submitted from DOTB18, and although it doesn't have quite the impact I wanted, I rather like it. I also had noticed that in the most recent chapters a lot of the drabbles were more beginning to resemble very short oneshots, and they were so long, so in this chapter I really tried to make them more . . . drabbly. Enjoy! **

**~.~**

**107. Balance**

The first time Hiccup sees the metal gadget that has replaced his left leg, his reaction is slight. Toothless watches, a tad of worry tainting the thrill of having his best friend returned to the world of the living. After all, losing a limb is no small thing—the dragon knows this, better than most.

A tiny spark lights in Hiccup's eyes then, as what he's seeing hits home finally, and he pales ever so slightly. Gently dangling his legs off the edge of the bed, he breathes deeply, and Toothless stands by for moral support. Panic is natural—again, Toothless would know—but the Viking boy is, for the moment, fending it off.

When he stands for the fist time, he wavers only a bit. Toothless hovers beside him, watching his friend's face closely. _It'll be okay,_ he wants to say. _I promise._

Hiccup takes a step. And promptly falls over.

He would have executed a face-plant if not for Toothless, who stretches out to catch him. Again, he wants to reassure the boy. _It'll be okay._

"Thanks, bud." He tries it again, still leaning against Toothless, but this time, he's one step closer to balancing.

**108. Scream**

Because dragon riding was not exactly second nature to any of Hiccup's friends, the boy and Toothless often found themselves giving what had come to be known as "dragon riding lessons." Despite sounding slightly less violent than "Viking training" or "dragon killing practice," these lessons were just as much of an adventure as those that had been standard before dragons had become part of Berk's society.

Toothless blamed most of the craziness on Ruffnut and Tuffnut, who could not for the life of them make it through an hour without starting some competition that usually ended with somebody free-falling a few thousand feet through the air. Sometimes though, the sheer foreign feeling of riding a dragon would get to someones head.

Take, for instance, the day Hiccup decides that his friends are ready to try some fanciful flying. They handle it pretty well for the most part (even considering how a gronkle, much less a gronkle with Fishlegs on it's back, is not particularly graceful in flight) with a few hang-ups along the way, but when it comes time to try the spinning, Snotlout reaches his breaking point.

Toothless isn't quite sure how to describe the sound that comes out of his mouth when his Furious Nightmare goes completely upside down for the first time—a shriek, perhaps? Or maybe a high-pitched howl?

But, specifics aside, it's definitely a scream. Even if he won't admit it afterwards.

**109. Scary**

"Ooh, man, Hiccup, how bad is it?"

Glancing up from where he was working at his forge, Hiccup examined Tuffnut's face. Toothless thought that the boy looked a bit like he'd been tossed off a cliff, drug through the mud, and then stampeded by a small flock of sheep.

"It's . . . bad. What happened?"

Snotlout came in then, looking equally as awful. "Astrid's what happened," he complained, massaging the back of his head. "Gods, I think I have a dent here."

"You're one to talk," Tuffnut shot back. "Did you _see _my sister kick me? It feels like she dislocated a rib or something."

Hiccup looked exasperated. "Don't tell me . . ."

"I mean, we didn't actually _do _anything to them," Snotlout said. "It was totally uncalled for!"

"Oh, I'm sure you said something," Hiccup assured them, unhelpfully so, in Toothless' opinion. "You didn't happen to mention their weight in any way, did you?"

Tuffnut looked guilty. "No. Well, maybe."

Hiccup rolled his eyes.

Snotlout sighed and leaned against the table, mopping blood from his brow as Tuffnut went off to find some ice for his black eye. "Girls are scary, man."

**110. Hazard**

Hiccup had a thing for falling. It was worrying, actually, how many times in a week he keeled over, especially while he was learning how to walk naturally on his prosthetic leg. Toothless had considered attaching himself to his best friend with a rope, like they did when they flew, to ensure that the boy didn't end up cracking his head open or knocking himself out. (Because it was coming. Sooner or later . . .)

The dragon wasn't sure if anybody else had noticed this about Hiccup, but he knows that Astrid had started to worry the day that Hiccup took a truly spectacular nose-dive down a flight of stairs and landed at her feet.

She knelt down beside his head as he rolled over on to his back with a groan. "Hiccup, after everything that you've survived, I find it hysterical that you're going to kill yourself by falling down a flight of _stairs_."

"I'm a Viking," he told her, sitting up. "It's an occupational hazard."

Astrid smiled at him. "Something tells me that _you're _the hazard."

**111. Heir **

Astrid came and sat beside Hiccup, close, so that their shoulders touched and her leg brushed against his. They were silent for a while, the three of them, Toothless and his two best friends, as they sat in the house that had been shared by Hiccup and his father.

"It's rightfully yours, you know," Astrid said after a while.

Hiccup stared at the wall, where his father's helmet and cloak hung on a hook. The great chief's hammer lay below. "I don't want it."

"You'd be a good chief, Hiccup. Everyone thinks so. Plus you'd have the elders to help you, when things got rough. And us." She bumped her knee against his.

"I know."

Hiccup was silent for a while longer.

"But if I became the chief of Berk, it would be like, like I was . . . "

Toothless watched as Astrid took Hiccup's hand in hers and rested her head on his shoulder. "Like you were admitting that he's dead," she said quietly. "I know."

"I can't let him go," Hiccup whispered. "Even if I am his heir."

"I know."


	25. Chapter 25

**Allrighty everybody, 'nuther batch up. I'm quite fond of these five, personally, even if the last three range from slight angst to angst party, but oh well. #112 has been suggested to me by about seven people over the course of this series, and I finally got around to wrighting it; #113 was springboarded off of a oneshot idea from DOTB18, and #114 was a one-word prompt from LadyNyoko. As always, I got some great ideas from you guys on the last chapter, and even if I didn't use them all here they'll probably show up sooner or later, so don't think I don't appreciate all the prompts and requests you guys give me. Keep 'em coming! Enjoy.**

**~.~**

**112. Snack**

"Toothless! Spit him out. _Now._"

The dragon growled and turned in an agitated circle. But this was his lunch!

"I mean it, Toothless. Spit out, uh . . ."

Hiccup looked to the old Viking woman who was glaring them both down. "Berczynskas," she snarled at them.

"Spit out Bercful-something-or-other," Hiccup demanded. "C'mon, bud, give him back."

Toothless sat down and scowled.

Hiccup sighed. "_Please_, Toothless, would you spit out Berx—Berczy. . .Berciffle for me?"

"Berczynskas!" the woman yelled at him.

"What she said! Spit him out!"

Oh, fine. Toothless focused for a minute, stalling for as long as he could before opening his mouth, whereupon a soggy, regurgitated, and still slightly twitching cat fell out onto the grass.

"You _swallowed _him?" Hiccup asked at the same time the old woman lunged forward with a cry of "Berczynskas!" and scooped up the wretched creature. She then whirled on Hiccup and started to give him a piece of her mind about keeping "monstrous scaly beasts as pets" and having "all manner of nasty overgrown reptiles wandering around" while Toothless stared longingly at the half-dead cat in her arms, licking his lips.

Fish may have been his main diet, but he was a carnivore at heart. Much to the terror and disgust of the creepy old cat-ladies.

**113. Tangled**

"You know what?" Fishlegs said. "I'm not even going to ask."

It seemed to Toothless that not asking was probably a good idea. Whether it had been a physical fight between the two or something far less hostile, he couldn't tell, but somehow or another Astrid and Hiccup had gotten fantastically tangled up around one another. Astrid was now using the handle of her ax to lever herself into a standing position, but was having some trouble due to the fact that she first had to kick herself free from Hiccup, who looked like he was in pain.

"Good," Astrid snapped, nailing Hiccup in the ribs with the heel of her boot.

"I'm not entirely sure how it happened, anyway," Hiccup gasped, clutching his side.

"Oh, yeah, I bet," Ruffnut said sarcastically, and Toothless snorted and rolled his eyes. "Seriously, can't we leave the two of you alone for ten minutes?"

Snotlout snickered. "Not at the rate they're going."

"Oh, shut up," Astrid said.

**114. Thorn**

Toothless has decided that Astrid is a rose.

Some might consider it odd, comparing the violent, ax-swinging, Viking girl to a flower of all things, but that's only because they don't know her well enough. Toothless does, though—he knows how, like the red rose, she may radiate confidence and symbolism, but she is fragile underneath; Like a rose's petals, her self-confidence can be plucked and shredded no matter how strong she appears to be. But nor is she defenseless, for with her beauty and hidden weaknesses comes the bite—the rose's thorns.

She is complex, Toothless knows, and it is her thorns that give her that subtle harsh edge that goes beyond her natural Viking traits, so that when her petals have been ripped away, all that remains is the unpleasant final defense. The dragon has also realized that this is why her relationship with Hiccup can be anywhere from strained to hopeless—the boy's ideas, his theories and beliefs and oddities, challenge everything she has ever known and therefore herself, stripping away the petals and leaving the thorns that make her difficult and defensive.

Perhaps, the dragon thinks, if these thorns were not there and Astrid could let the wall come down, give up the fight when it becomes a lost cause, she would not damage herself and those who are close to her. But she is a rose. She is beautiful and strong on the outside, fragile beneath, and deep down, in a place that is rarely brought to the light, she is destructive and dangerous and angry.

And this, Toothless knows, will be her downfall.

**115. Unintended**

"He always loved you more," Stoick said quietly. "I was never his father. Not really. It was always you."

Gobber didn't look up from his forge. "Nah. Hiccup never wanted to be like me. You were always his role model, even if you were too blinded by his oddities to see it."

"Don't give me that," Stoick snarled. "I know it's my fault. But maybe it's for the best. Look at how he turned out—a bigger hero as a lad than I'll ever be, and it's because you raised him right."

Toothless, who was listening in on the conversation, couldn't help but feel bad for the Viking chief. From what he had been told, it was entirely true; Gobber and Hiccup were shockingly alike, from their missing limbs and sarcasm to their talent at the forge to their belief in trolls, and it was Gobber who had mentored and raised the boy while Stoick mostly watched from a distance. And even if Hiccup had idolized his father as a child, it was always Gobber who he had bonded with.

The blacksmith put down his hammer. "I didn't intend for it to happen like that," he told his friend truthfully.

Stoick the Vast looked sad. "I know. But I'm glad it did."

**116. Remember**

They were fighting for their lives.

Toothless knew. It was Berk's last stand. The village had been besieged and taken in a matter of days, and most either lay dead on the ground or had fled into the forest hours ago—except for them. It was Toothless and an odd assortment of dragons, few in number, with Stoick and Gobber, Ruffnut, Astrid, Fishlegs, Hiccup, and a few other brave and loyal Vikings willing to give their lives for Berk. There were only about thirty of them in all though, a mere fraction of the enemy force that had overtaken the village, old Viking rivals from even further North than Berk.

And the last little resistance that Berk had left was weakening. Toothless could feel the strength and spirit draining from his friends as they struggled to hold on to the last few yards of the village. They had already lost so much of everything: blood, energy, and friends—Snotlout among them—and their home was going to be the next to go.

Ruffnut was having trouble. She was bleeding profusely and had been maneuvered away from her allies. Toothless was struggling to get to her, but he could already tell that he was going to be too late—she had been backed into a corner by her opponent and was weak to the point where she could barely block his blows.

The young man she was fighting lunged forward, and she managed to block his spear with her own only once before he sent her spinning with a blow with his shield that Toothless thought was sure to knock her out. It nearly did, and the dragon saw with horror that the only thing keeping her standing on both feet was the man's spear at her throat.

It was then that he realized who she was fighting.

Tuffnut's eyes narrowed. He removed his spearhead from his sister's neck, and she slid to the ground, her chest heaving in pain but her gaze on Tuffnut's face.

"I remember you," he whispered. "You're Ruffnut."

"Aye," she said quietly. "But who are _you_?"

Tuffnut stared at her. "I don't remember."

Ruffnut stared back. "I do."


	26. Chapter 26

**I have two very important things to say: Number one, I am alive. Number two, I fail epically at updating. You know, in case you haven't noticed already. -cringe- **

**Well, anywhoo. #119 is a spin-off of a request from RCWriter, who wanted an insight into Gobber and Stoick's younger days and inspired me to write "Storytellers." I also had a drabble called "Invisible," which was a prompt from Redbud-Tree, but I didn't like the style that I wrote it in and decided to wait and come back to it. Hopefully it'll pop up in the next batch. Also, this entire chapter is a request from several people, who told me that I angst too much and need to write some happy drabbles. XD So none of them are angsty, except for maybe #120, but that's not really angst. Actually, I'm not sure exactly _what _that one is, except maybe random. I wrote it at about three in the morning, so . . . yeah . . . . Anyway, enjoy!**

**~.~**

** 117. Detonate**

"Huh. Well, last time, it didn't explode as much."

"Last time," Stoick repeated dumbly. His beard was smoking, and even as he stood there in shock, a piece of smoldering debris fell from the sky and bounced off his helmet with a clang.

"Okay, that probably didn't sound good. It wasn't _supposed _to explode as much. How about that?"

"Hiccup . . . that was our _house_."

The boy coughed nervously, and Toothless scooted to one side as half the dining table came crashing to earth, trailing smoke and sparks in it's wake. "Well . . ." He glanced to where the bed had erupted into a fiery inferno. "Yeah. But, uh, we can rebuild," he offered.

As far as Toothless could tell, Stoick still didn't seem to have come to terms with the fact that his son had just blown up their house. "Rebuild. Okay. We can rebuild."

For a moment, there was no sound other than the crackling of the burning bed and the occasional _thunk! _of falling pieces of wall that had been thrown into the air by the explosion.

"Hiccup . . . what exactly did you _do_?"

The boy cringed. "Think chemicals, Dad. And molten iron. Plus some fire. And maybe . . . maybe a bit of uranium."

"Oh."

**118. Hiccups**

"_Hic._"

Toothless looked up in surprise.

"_Hic. Hic. Hic._"

The dragon grinned. Beside him, a gentle smile stole across Astrid's features, but it was quickly replaced with a mischievous look.

"_Hic. Hic._"

"Why, Hiccup, what do you—"

"_HIC_."

They stared at him, still too surprised to be howling with laughter, and Hiccup scowled. "Don't you dare—_hic—_say—_hic—__anything_."

**119. Storytellers**

High atop a watchtower, gathered around a campfire, Toothless sits beside his best friend, listening as Stoick the Vast and Gobber argue over the finer points of the War of the Ages.

"It was Fingall the Six-Eyed who killed the Creature of Doom," Gobber insists, waving his hooked hand around in an attempt of emphasis. "Not Phlegm the Terrible! She wasn't even born for another six years!"

"Nonsense," Stoick says, dismissing Gobber's interruption. "It was Phlegm the Terrible, Mort Morbid's wife, who cut off it's head and ended the war. Fingall the Six-Eyed was off pillaging with Rockjaw Grate Jr. when it happened; He wasn't even _there_."

Toothless has never realized just how creatively Vikings named their children.

"Oh please, Mort Morbid was three generations older than Phlegm, there's no _way _she would have married him. And Fingall the Six-Eyed never went pillaging! He was too worried about his blood pressure to risk a voyage." Gobber glares at Stoick, who opens his mouth to argue, but Hiccup jumps in, much to Toothless' relief.

"Um, could you maybe tell a different story?"

Toothless exchanges a look with the boy, and they both struggle not to smile.

"Fine," Stoick grumbles, looking peeved. "Have ever told you about the time that my father told me to bang my head on a boulder and—"

"And you got a headache," Gobber says, rolling his eyes. "Let's not even go there. How about when I lost my—"

"Leg?" Stoick asks. "Please, I've heard that one so many times, I know it better than you."

"Alright, then how about the Battle of the Mountaintop, where I slew the Creature of Doom's great-great-great grandson with only my—"

"What! You did no such thing. That was _me_!"

"You only claimed credit for it, because you're the chief, but I was the one that did all the work. Hiccup knows all about it, right lad?"

"Yeah, right, don't listen to that old duffer, son, I'll tell you what happened . . ."

**120. Oblivion**

Toothless lifts his head as the sea breeze whistles over his skin, the spray thrown skyward from the booming waves misting his face as he stands at the very foremost point of the ship, like a figurehead. Behind the dragon, his hand resting on the handle of his father's heavy battle ax, Hiccup stares into the fog with glassy eyes.

Toothless knows that, of all the jobs in the world, his best friend would never have asked for this one.

Eerie silence reigns as the single warship slices through the water. The crew, or what's left of it, stays quiet as they row. Oars splash as they hit the water and boards creak as the ship rocks, but there are no voices. Nothing moves out of turn, nothing breaks the spell. There are no provisions left, but that really doesn't matter much. Maybe it did at one point, but Toothless can't bring himself to care anymore. Nobody else can, either. Nothing exists but the splash of oars and the creak of the ship and the rustle of the water beneath them.

The world is cold. Cold and quiet and colorless, white with fog and the pallid skin of the crew and black with the deep, deep water and the dragon that points the way to, what he hopes, is . . . something. He can't remember exactly where they're going, only that it isn't cold and silent and colorless, and maybe, when they get there someday, to that far-off destination, maybe then he'll remember. But it's hard to get where you're going when you don't know where that is.

Off in the whiteness that surrounds them, a rock looms. The top of a submerged mountain, perhaps, is what Toothless thinks. If so, the tallest one around, because no others accompany it. The dragon imagines that there's someone standing on the rock, a woman perhaps, with an axe slung over her shoulder and her blond hair held back from her face by a wickedly spiked headband. But she doesn't move, even in his imagination, and he thinks about what she would see if she were actually there.

A single lonely warship sailing through the fog. The crew cold and caught forever in a routine of rowing in careful synch. The captain standing at the wheel, tall and lean and grim and completely motionless. The dragon, pointing the way. And all of it cold and quiet and colorless, until it disappeared forever into the mists, relentlessly sailing home to . . . _somewhere_. Toothless can't remember where.

Oblivion, perhaps.

**121. Spirits**

"What do you think they are?"

Snotlout glances at Ruffnut. ". . . Whut?"

The Viking girl points upward. "The stars. What do you think they are?"

Toothless follows her finger to the dark sky above them, speckled with insane amounts of tiny glowing pinpricks. They're lying on the grass, the odd trio, enjoying a rare summer heat wave and stargazing.

"I don't know, really," Snotlout says with a slight shrug.

"Oh, come on, you must have an idea at least." Ruffnut rolls over on her stomach to look at him and rests her elbows on the ground and her chin in her palms. For the first time Toothless can remember, she is not wearing her helmet, and her hair falls in a casual tangled mane down her back instead of being tied into signature braids.

"Well . . ." Snotlout says slowly, "my dad says that the stars are the spirits of warriors. He used to tell me that some people go other places, but the best and the bravest and the most honorable go up there, to watch over the rest of us."

Toothless can see Ruffnut's eyes shining in the soft starlight as she rolls onto her back again, staring upward.

"I like that."


	27. Chapter 27

**Being a zombie is a pain. My fingers keep falling off when I type. And yes. That's the excuse I'm going to use to explain why I haven't updated this in, like, six months. It's a good excuse, right? Anyway, you know the drill. Read and review and enjoy and all that jazz. *drumroll* **

**~.~**

**122. Release**

"He's not usually like this!" Hiccup insists as Toothless pulls sharply out of a nose dive and starts corkscrewing like crazy. Astrid doesn't seem to hear him; She's presently digging her nails into his shoulders as she hangs on to him for dear life. Toothless yanks hard to the right and spirals for a bit, ignoring Hiccup's complaining as he waits for the ridiculously stubborn Astrid to give up the fight.

The same way that she clings to Hiccup now, she is still clinging to her beliefs, her stereotypes, her fears. As Toothless practices his aerial somersaults, he waits for her to let go. Let go of her hate and her misguided fears and open up to the world that has always been around her but that she has been to stubborn to see.

The dragon is contemplating whether he should do another nosedive or continue somersaulting when he hears her – "Okay! Okay, _I'm sorry_!"

_Wham! _His wings go out, and Toothless steadies himself. His rocky midair acrobatics level out to a perfect glide, calm and weightless, and he soars gently on the twilight. Behind him, he feels Astrid loosen, lift her head from Hiccup's shoulder and then, slowly, release him from her vice grip. Tentatively, reluctantly, she begins to release all of that fear, those stereotypes that have been her way of life for so long.

He smiles to himself as she reaches up to the clouds, opening her arms wide—also her heart, her mind—and releases completely her hold on Hiccup.

**123. Fairytale**

Hiccup reads him stories sometimes. Not boring works of nonfiction with titles like "Fungi of the Southern Midwestern Regions" or "A Study of Acids," (although he reads those to Toothless too) but actual _stories_.

Toothless likes one particular story the best – The tale of a princess who falls in love with a common blacksmith's son. In the story, there are dragons and monsters and cranky old bearded guys called "wizards" who wear funny hats and can do all kinds of fantastic stuff, and there are talking cats and mermaids and short people with pointy ears. In the end, everybody gets to live happily ever after except the evil king, who gets dropped into a pit of lava by a fat lady with wings called a "fairy godmother."

Toothless wishes real life was like this, that cats could talk and the bad guy always dies in the end and the good guy always saves the pretty girl. He knows that things don't work like that, but he likes to imagine it, and keep an eye out for mermaids, anyway. After all – there's a dragon in Toothless' favorite fairy tale.

Maybe he can be that dragon.

**124. Educate**

Sitting across from them at the table, Toothless notices immediately the way Ruffnut frowns at the open book that lies on the table in front of Hiccup. She's been like that for a while, staring at it over his shoulder as he reads and completely ignoring her food, which is entirely uncharacteristic of her. Toothless notices that her eyes don't follow the lines like Hiccup's do.

After some time, Hiccup notices too. He glances up at the scowling Viking girl.

"I could teach you, if you like," he tells her.

"Teach me what?" Ruffnut asked defiantly.

"To read."

The Viking girl opens her mouth, probably to swear at him, but then she looks away. After several seconds of awkward silence she glances sideways at him again, looking shy, a hesitant little smile on her face. "Okay."

**125. Frost**

Toothless sat at the window, admiring his artwork. With painstaking precision, he had managed to scratch a picture in the frost that coated the glass – A Night Fury, to be exact. Granted it didn't look much like a Night Fury, or anything, really, until you tilted your head to the left and squinted through one eye, but that was beside the point.

Walking by, Hiccup glanced over and noticed. "Nice –" the Viking boy tilted his head to the left and squinted "–dragon, buddy. But the picture isn't done yet." Reaching over, he carved a quick stick figure in the frost, giving it a hat with horns, a big smile, and a book in one hand. "There you go."

He walked off, but Toothless sat there, smiling at the boy and the dragon in the window.


	28. Chapter 28

**I like these five. Very much, actually. So, thanks to all you guys who left a review last chapter; I see a few names I recognize from the days before I dropped off the face of FanFictionPlanet for eight months, so if you guys are still following these drabbles from the old days, you rock. Seriously. And to all the new faces, welcome! Just so you guys know I probably won't be using any of your suggestions for a little while, but you're certainly welcome to give me ideas if you have any you'd like to see written; I'll put them away for later and use them when I don't have any ideas of my own. Anywhoos, you know the drill. Read. Review. Eat your vegetables. Enjoy.**

**~.~**

**122. Prepared**

It wasn't easy to upset Ruffnut. In fact, to see the tough Viking girl distressed at all was as rare as a blue moon — and Toothless had learned that it was always an excellent idea to prepare yourself way beforehand when you went to help her work out her problems.

Toothless had also learned that boys were beyond useless in such a situation. Astrid was the best one to call.

"Hey, what's wrong with y—"

_Whap! _

Astrid leaned on the handle of her shovel, brushing hair from her eyes and grinning expectantly at the tearful Ruffnut as Snotlout staggered away, clutching his head.

"So, who's the loser we need to bury?"

**123. Adventure**

"Hey guys, whatcha doing?"

The dragon and the one-legged boy turned to look at Astrid as she bounded up behind them. "Oh . . ." Hiccup shrugged. "Going for a walk."

"Where are you going?"

"Into the woods."

"You following a map?"

Toothless shook his head.

"The twins found a cave system on the other side of the river the other week. They say something lives in there that's got footprints the size of Gobber's head," the blond informed them.

"Maybe we'll head that way, then."

"The terrain's pretty bad over there, though."

"I've got back-up." Hiccup gestured to his dragon. "Rocks aren't a problem."

"Whatever's in those caves probably is, though."

Toothless and Hiccup exchanged a look. "Let's go find out. Wanna come?"

Astrid's toothy smile split her face. "You bet I do!"

**124. Loyalty**

"Idiot."

"Jerk."

"_Moron._"

"_Freak._"

Ruffnut reached out and socked her brother none-too-gently on the shoulder, and he shoved her in return. Sprawling out at Toothless' feet, she spat dust from her mouth venomously and launched herself at Tuffnut, tackling him around the knees and bringing him down hard.

"For the love of Thor, quit it, you two." Hiccup and Toothless sidestepped the twins as they rolled by, Ruffnut's knee in her brother's gut and and Tuffnut's hands wrapped around his sister's neck.

They ignored him, typically, and hopped up, grappling with one another. Ruffnut slammed Tuffnut into a tree with enough force to bring leaves drifting down onto their heads, and he grabbed her by the arm and twisted it back to an unnatural angle, bringing her to her knees.

"You two are going to kill each other one of these days, you know that?" Rolling his eyes slightly, Snotlout casually stuck out a foot and tripped Tuffnut as the boy staggered by.

But he never hit the ground. Ruffnut caught her twin around the waist, and they jumped Snotlout together.

**125. Mutual**

Toothless hears the commotion first, but it's Fishlegs who identifies it. The dragon briefly considers finding Hiccup, but squashes the idea immediately—the one-legged boy has been having problems with his own father recently; He doesn't need to be drug into this as well. Not yet.

Later, they find her sitting on the ledge on a high cliff outside of Berk, staring out at the ocean. Astrid glances up when they come sit on either side of her and looks down again just as quickly, but not before Toothless sees the ugly yellow bruise that stains her jaw. Her eyes are red.

"They don't hate you." Fishlegs' voice is quiet, and although this whole situation is new for Toothless, there's something about the way the boy says it that makes the dragon think that he's been here before.

Astrid gently touches her bruise with her fingertips. "They don't love me, either."

Toothless knows that Vikings have never been particularly enthusiastic when it comes to affection, but there's no excuse for this. He touches the tip of his tail to the small of Astrid's back comfortingly, and her fingers lower from her face to twist in the grass beside her.

"If they don't, then they're making a mistake," Fishlegs tells her, and she tries to smile, without much success.

"It's okay," she says. Her voice is bitter. "I don't love them, either."

**126. Elixir **

Toothless knew he shouldn't be messing with Hiccup's experiments. He'd seen the boy make things explode, disintegrate, smoke, shrink, shrivel, and liquify.

But _oh_, this one smelled _so good._

The liquid in the vial was a lovely amber color, not an ominous shade of toxic green or electric blue, nor did it have the unappetizing texture of mud, as so many of Hiccup's concoctions did. It looked as wonderful as it smelled, but the question was, did it taste that good as well?

Toothless 'accidentally' bumped the table leg with his shoulder, and the vial teetered for a moment before tipping gracefully and spilling it's contents over the edge of the tabletop.

Yep. It tasted pretty darn wonderful, too.

A few minutes later, as Toothless was making his escape, Stoick the Vast happened to walk by. His mouth fell open. "Hiccup—_Hiccup_, your dragon is _yellow_!"


	29. Chapter 29

**Herp derp. Here I am. Thanks for being patient. None of these five are requests from reviewers, but don't let that stop you from throwing ideas at me. I write them all down to use for later, when I'm too braindead to come up with any myself. Anyway, #135 is a continuation of #130, because the mental image was too good to pass up. Read and review and all that jazz. Enjoy. (: **

**~.~**

**131. Cripple**

Toothless knows that Hiccup hates that word. They are _not_ cripples. Neither of them.

Hiccup walks. He runs. Heck, he _flies_, which is more than most human beings can say, even if they do have two legs. And just like people with two legs, he can dance (although he doesn't claim to be gifted at it) and he can get out of bed in the morning and stand up (although he'd love to stay in bed until noon, if Toothless would let him) and he can chase down Tuffnut when the boy steals his books with the intention of using them as kindling for a bonfire (which happens on a frustratingly regular basis). Just like everybody else, Hiccup can climb staircases and hike mountains and, on days when he's feeling _really_ good, do a cartwheel. Well, kind of. If he practiced more he'd be able to do a cartwheel.

Toothless flies. He's got some pretty nifty areal tricks up his metaphorical sleeve, too, ones that a lot of other dragons with all fins and wings and bits and bobs still attached couldn't do—let _alone _with a human on their back—even if they were crazy enough to try. Like other dragons, Toothless can fish (although usually he just waits for Hiccup to come feed him) and he can ride jet streams (although it's getting _off _them that's the issue) and he can still hit those astronomical flying speeds that Nightfuries are famous for (in your face, Gronkles!).

The fact that Toothless needs Hiccup to help him fly and that Hiccup needs Toothless there to help him up staircases doesn't matter. They're one and the same, after all. Toothless and Hiccup. Hiccup and Toothless. One makes up for what the other one lacks, and since they're attached at the hip, they're never lacking anything.

They are _not _cripples. Neither of them.

**132. Gold**

"Where the heck did you get that thing?"

Toothless blinked at the shiny little object in Snotlout's hand.

"It's pretty," Ruffnut commented. "Pretty useless, probably. What's the point of those things, anyway?"

Snotlout examined it. "I know, right? You can't even kill somebody with it. What's the point of carrying something around with you if you can't kill anybody with it?"

Perhaps it _would _be difficult to kill somebody with it (although Toothless figured Snotlout, if anybody, could find a way) the observing dragon reasoned, but people around the world would probably kill _for _it.

"You want it?"

"No. What would I do with it? Toss the thing."

Snotlout did, and the three of them watched the golden ring spin downward, swallowed with barely a ripple as it hit the blue ocean. They had no use for it, anyway.

**133. Fireflies**

Toothless has always thought that the sparks from a fire look like fireflies. Gentle and flickering, meandering lazily about on the currents with no real destination in mind. Little pinpoints of light in the darkness, like stars, but closer, more comprehensible. At any rate, he's always liked them.

They're everywhere now. The sparks. Or fireflies, whichever they are. He doesn't know for sure, since all the smoke he's inhaling is finally getting to his brain, making his thoughts slow and his vision fuzzy. Somewhere in the back of his mind a little voice that sounds a bit like Astrid is whispering _Fly! Fly!_ but his wings hurt too much and he's reeling so badly he can barely stand, let alone lift off. The dragon thinks that maybe he should go find out where Hiccup went off to, but then he lets that go. Hiccup is safe. Even if he wasn't, Toothless couldn't do much for him right now anyway.

Fireflies are _so _pretty. It's a pity they're so hot, Toothless thinks. It's a pity that where there's sparks, there's fire. There are a lot of fireflies—too many, in fact. The burning building that gave birth to them is the one he's currently in, and as much as he likes fireflies, he'd _really _like to get out now. Pity his wings burn and his body aches and it hurts to breathe and he can't think straight, can't see straight, can't walk straight. Maybe he'll just lay here, where he fell, and watch the fireflies.

They're _so _pretty.

**134. Mischief**

"For the love of Thor! Don't sneak up on us like that, you freaks!"

Ruffnut claps a hand across her brother's mouth, and the four of them stare at each other for a moment. Hiccup and Toothless, Tuffnut and Ruffnut.

"What, _exactly_," Hiccup asks, "are you doing sneaking around at four in the morning with kitchen utensils and a box of rocks?"

"Well, what are _you _guys doing sneaking around at four in the morning with uncooked bacon and—what is that—a turtle?" Tuffnut shoots back.

There's an awkward moment of silence in which Toothless gives Tuffnut his best Evil Eye and Ruffnut riffles absently through her box of rocks.

"I'll make you a deal," Hiccup says. "We didn't see you, as long as you didn't see us. Or the bacon. Or the turtle."

"Did you hear somebody talking?" Ruffnut asks her twin. "There's nobody out here, sneaking around at four in the morning, but the two of us."

The two parties pass each other in silence and carry on their way.

**135. Antidote**

"Well, buddy, this should teach you not to go around drinking stuff if you don't know what it is."

Hiccup shoots a sheepishly grinning Toothless a stern look, and Astrid gives a snort of laughter. The dragon has learned his lesson, all right. Drinking one of Hiccup's experiments and turning himself yellow really wasn't an experience he wanted to repeat, even if the elixir tasted _amazing_.

"You _did _leave it sitting on the table where he could get to it," Astrid points out on Toothless' behalf, and Hiccup grills her with a _don't-encourage-him _kind of look as he pours the antidote into the yellow Nightfury's mouth. It doesn't taste nearly as good as the first one did—in fact, it's a not-so-delicious brownish-green color, and has a texture similar to that of mud and a taste that reminds Toothless vaguely of tree sap. A typical Hiccup concoction, no doubt about it. Toothless chokes it down regardless. Yellow isn't his color.

Toothless closes his eyes, waiting to see if he feels any different, or less yellow, perhaps. After several seconds, Hiccup gasps. Astrid claps slowly in a sarcastic round of applause.

"Congratulations, Hiccup," she says. "I thought Toothless looked awful yellow, but you've managed to turn him the _one _color that looks worse. Pink is atrocious!"


End file.
